Baby You Can Drive My Car
by syrrah
Summary: Music fans think rock diva Bella Swan is brilliant, talented and a gift to humankind. People who actually know her think she's a menace to society, and a pain in the backside. Then Edward Cullen comes on board as tour manager, and who knows what he thinks?
1. Chapter 1

These characters bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead and this story is in no way derived from anything other than my secret dreams...

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

I missed the plane, and the guys were furious. Carlisle had even called me an hour before I was due at the airport to see if I was ready to go, and I _still_ missed the plane.

"You fucking up-yourself stupid rockstar bitch," Mike snarled at me.

It was fair enough for him to be mad, I guess, because now we couldn't play the festival and we were so vibed to do it, we all wanted it badly. But fuck - I'm phobic about flying. All I did was have one little joint to settle my nerves and then I thought I'd run through a couple of the songs by myself, and then I got an idea for something new, and by the time I next looked at the clock I saw I should've left twenty minutes ago. When the cab-driver turned up I said I'd pay extra if he put his foot down, but the straight-laced little scaredy-cat wouldn't speed, so I was late.

"You've really done it this time, Bella," Lauren said, shaking her head, and the other two wouldn't even speak to me.

"Do you have to be late for fucking _everything_? Do you have to fuck everything up for everybody else? Do you have to be so fucking _selfish_? What were you doing anyway? I swear I'm gonna fucking quit. You are so _unprofessional_ - you don't deserve any of this, and you're not so fucking hot that the rest of us have to put up with you," Mike ranted, and I looked to Carlisle to get him to stop the abuse Mike was dishing out, but our manager was busy being managerial on the phone and not taking any notice.

"Well, whatever it was that was so important it caused you to miss our flight, you can get the hell back to it now, because _we're not going anywhere_, " Mike hissed, and I scowled at him.

Carlisle finished up his call and said, "Cool it for a second, Mikey. I've spoken to the promoter and he's prepared to put us in a later slot if we get the next flight. Bella, you are in big trouble missy, but we may be able to salvage this mess. Wait here while I see if I can change the tickets."

The five of us, along with our sound engineer Erik waited, no-one saying a word, and everyone avoiding looking at me, until Carlisle came back.

"Done. Sorted. They're about to call boarding for the next flight - and there was a last-minute cancellation on the small stage so we can play there at eight. It's a better time slot obviously, but we're not on the main stage any more." He didn't succumb to the whole avoidance tendency, he stared pointedly. Oh yeah, it was all _my_ fault.

I had to sit by myself on the plane because no-one would sit with me, not even Lauren, and us two usually gravitated towards each other to get away from the dick talk. Did you know that when boys sit in a vehicle for any length of time they get an erection? No, I hadn't known it either, but the boys in our band would have discussions about what they fondly termed their "traveling companions" that Lauren and I really didn't need to hear. I'm not even going to fill you in on the scatological stuff. Suffice to say, on tour Lauren and I stuck together. Except for now. She wasn't speaking to me.

But hey, we got there, we played - okay it wasn't the main stage and there were only about a hundred people watching as opposed to a couple of thousand, but it all turned out all right in the end, didn't it?

The boys' room was always the party room in whatever hotel we were in, because it always smelled bad and if Lauren and I were in another room we could leave the smell behind when we wanted to go to sleep, but after the festival when I knocked on the boys' door there was no-one in there. The bastards. They must all have been hanging out with one of the other bands and they were so shitted off with me that they hadn't told me. I wandered the corridors listening out for the sounds of drinking and mayhem, but couldn't find them. Fucking bastards.

That night I actually got the best sleep I'd ever had on tour because I wasn't up until four a.m drinking and smoking weed, or snorting chemical mood-enhancers. I was the only member of the band in the hotel's dining room for breakfast, and when we assembled in the lobby for the twelve o'clock checkout I was the only one not wearing sunglasses.

"Well, that all worked out for the best, didn't it? Everybody happy?" I said chirpily, and I couldn't believe it when Mike actually gave me the finger.

"Carlisle?" I whined, and he said, "Actually, no Bella - we were considerably down on merch sales because we didn't get the size of audience we were anticipating, and quite frankly, the promoters are probably going to be reluctant to book us again. It wasn't a monumental fuck-up, but it was a fuck-up, nonetheless. We were even docked because playing on the small stage doesn't attract the same fee as playing on the big stage. Once you take the airfares and hotel into account, we lost money."

Oh crap. Everybody still hated me, and I was ostracized all the way back.

"Now before we all go our separate ways, soundcheck next Saturday is six o'clock. The venue is a three hour drive away. That means meet at the office by two-thirty. Got that _Bella_?" Carlisle said at the airport as we were waiting for cabs, and I just poked my tongue out at him, like a kid. God, if he was going to treat me like one, that's how I was going to act.

So next Saturday, after a reminder call from him at twelve, and again at one, I was lazing around wondering whether to put on nail varnish or not when there was a knock at my door. More like a pounding, really. It sounded like the fucking police.

"Keep your hair on," I yelled, taking my time to open up.

The god of gorgeous stood there on my doorstep. Green eyes, tousled hair, tall and skinny. Fuck me.

"Huh?" I said. "I didn't order anything."

He grinned and pushed past, walking into my apartment like he had a right to.

"Hello Bella, I'm your driver. I'm here to take you to the office," he said.

"Huh?" I said again, sounding like a Mensa member. There was something familiar about him, but I was absolutely positive l had never met him before. I would have remembered.

"I'm Edward. Dad asked me to make sure you got there on time," he said, to clarify the situation. Oh, God, that's why he looked familiar. He was Carlisle's son. I'd seen photos of him, but frankly, they didn't do him justice. He'd probably caused the camera to malfunction. Holy crap. Carlisle was very handsome, although I always had to block that out because he was my manager, but his son was about fifteen times handsomer, and in my age bracket, just to top it all off.

"Wait a minute - you're here to what?" I said, as what he'd told me slowly registered.

"Carlisle says you're always late. Well, you won't be today," he said, smirking.

Okay, handsome or not, now I was slightly annoyed. "I'm running right on time today, thanks, and I'll get to the office just fine by myself," I informed him.

"You'll get there just fine with me taking you. Now, it's an overnighter isn't it? Are you packed? Where's your bag?" he asked, looking around.

"I'm just about to pack, thanks, and there's the door. Off you go, I'll be there at two-thirty, as arranged," I said, glowering.

"Not packed yet? Let me help. You'll need a toothbrush, a clean shirt and a change of underwear. Where can I find those things?" he said, and I very nearly gasped out loud.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" I demanded, as he walked into my tiny hall and opened the first door. It was a closet.

"No toothbrushes here," he observed. I was standing right behind him wondering if I could just grab him and throw him out but he was pretty big, a lot bigger than me.

The next door was the bathroom, and he just picked up my toothbrush and went for the next door, which was my bedroom.

"This looks promising," he remarked, and I was nearly ready to hit him.

"Get the hell out of here - I'm telling Carlisle. I'm going to call him right now. You're trespassing. I'm dialling 911," I threatened, getting my phone out, but he ignored me and walked right on in.

I'd been shopping earlier and there was was a bag on the bed with my latest purchase - a retro-style Beatles t-shirt - in it. He picked up the bag and had a look before I could snatch it from him.

"This will do just fine," he said, and went over to my dresser. I gulped as he opened the top drawer. That was where I kept makeup, tampons and condoms. Oh, fuck.

"Do you need any of these tonight?" he asked without a trace of embarrassment, holding up a box of tampax. I just glared. "If you're not going to tell me I'll put them in anyway, just to be on the safe side. What about these?" This was while he held up the box of trojans. I had never been so livid in all my life.

"No, Carlisle says you wouldn't need these on tour, you're not that sort of girl," he answered his own question while I seethed.

"Now, where's your underwear?"

"You are a fucking freak and a pervert!" I began to screech. "Mind your own fucking business and leave everything alone!" but it was too late. He'd opened the second drawer, and he held up the first thing he found. A tiny purple lace thong.

"This will do," he said non-commitally, and chucked it in the shopping bag.

"You're ready. Let's go," he declared then, and took me by the arm. I let him have it.

"I'm calling the cops! I'm going to have you charged! You complete, total maniac! Who let you out of the hospital? Do they know you're on the loose? You can't do this to me!"

As I yelled, he had the bag in one hand and me in the other, and he was pulling me outside, grabbing my keys from the table next to the door on his way past. He managed to bundle me into my car, still hurling abuse at him, and he locked the door so I couldn't get out. All my yelling was like water off a duck's back. When I stopped to breathe, he just turned to me with a grin and said, "Come on, hellcat. Is that all you've got?"

No, it wasn't. I had a joint in one pocket and a lighter in the other, so I pulled them both out and flicked the lighter, figuring if I was going to have to suffer this indignity, at least I could be stoned.

Man, that guy could move fast. He had pulled over, stopped the car, whipped the unlit joint out of my hands and thrown it through the open window before I knew what was happening.

"Hey, what the - ?" I mumbled. "Did you think I wasn't going to share?"

"That stuff is shit," he growled. "It destroys your brain cells and from I hear, you've got a pretty good collection, you wouldn't want them depleted."

Fighting back even more annoyance, I tried to work out if I'd just been complimented or not. I couldn't decide.

By the time we got to the office I was still silently fuming. Everyone else was already there, and I felt absolutely humiliated, although Edward was sporting a grin a mile wide as he walked around to open my door.

"Wanker," I hissed at him when he handed me the shopping bag.

"Traveling light, Bella?" Mike asked, and he was fucking lucky I didn't punch him. I spent the whole drive staring out of the window with my mouth clamped shut, listening to the stupid traveling companion remarks and hating my bandmates.

The show actually went really well that night, despite my being so irate I was prowling the stage like a wild animal. The air crackled with energy, and I guess the audience all picked up on it, because they went crazy.

We had three shows the next week, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Soundcheck was at six every night, and I was at the venue by four, reading a book, waiting for everyone else. No-one could fault me on my punctuality, and I sure as hell wasn't giving Carlisle a reason to send his fucktard son around to my place again.

On the Saturday I was browsing the guest list, and saw the name Edward Cullen there. Is this someone's idea of a fucking joke? I thought. Next to the name I wrote in big black writing, "Do _not_ let in, by order of Bella Swan," and went back to sit in the band room and write out the set list.

Now we have a way of counting down until showtime. Carlisle says, "Rock minus twenty," or "Rock minus ten," or whatever, to let us know how much time we have left. I happened to be in there on my own singing warm-ups at rock minus five, when a head presented itself around the door. A head with entirely disrespectful green eyes, and sticking-up dark red hair.

"What the _feck_ are you doing here?" I exclaimed. "I left specific instructions for you not to be let in!"

"I've missed you. You're avoiding me," he said. "For three days now I"ve come over to your place and you're not there."

"If you set foot in this room, my hand is _not_ going to avoid smacking you in the face," I hissed.

"Bella, the bitch I know and love. Carlisle said you and I would get on," he replied, grinning although he didn't come any closer. He must have believed me.

"Fuck off. You're disturbing me. I have to get into the zone," I said, and he nodded.

"Sure, okay. See you afterwards. Have a good one."

A good one? I was seeing red and I think I gave the performance of my life. All the others fed off my fury, and we were on fire. I was so high when I got off stage that I wasn't angry any more, just elated. Stupid Edward was in the band room, and I tell you, I was off my tits, and it was without any weed. I was high on music, and the audience, and my cool, cool, ace band, and just everything. I walked right up and grabbed the front of Edward's shirt.

"Uh, Bella?" he said, clearing wondering if he was going to get that smack in the face. No, that's not what he was going to get. I kissed him. After all, he was fucking gorgeous and to tell the truth, no-one, but _no-one_, had ever stood up to me before quite the way he had. I was extremely impressed with him. I kissed him hard and his mouth opened in surprise, hot and responsive. That lasted for a mere second before he pulled back abruptly, but his eyes stared into mine, and then I felt a very soft, very sweet brush of his lips against mine before he said, "No," albeit gently. Fuck, he was standing up to me again! I couldn't quite read what his refusal meant. I mean, it was verbally a no, but he'd followed it with that little ghost kiss. Mixed signals much, Edweird?

There was a bit of grass floating around later, but I didn't have any. Everyone congratulated me on how I'd gotten to soundcheck on time every day, and I told them all to get fucked and we all laughed our heads off. We hung around discussing the performance, and then just talking crap for a couple of hours. Carlisle looked exceptionally pleased with himself, and of course he did because he was managing such a fuckhot band.

I had a few drinks, and managed to stumble right when I was walking past Edward, who was sitting down, and I landed across his knees, his strong arms around me preventing me from falling further. I kind of did fall further though, I fell into even deeper attraction.

Edward didn't make me get up, and he kept holding on. Okay, very nice. I was confused, and drunk. And confused.

Then at about two, it was time to go. I'd been on Edward's lap for ages. I'm skinny, but still - his legs must have gone to sleep.

"Are you going to take me home? Apparently you're my driver," I said to him, slinging an arm around his shoulder. His hands were loosely at my waist, and his smile was very close.

"No, not tonight. I've been drinking and I can't drive," he said. "Carlisle's arranged for someone else to get you all safely home."

"I thought it was your job," I pouted, because, damn. _Damn_.

"Not tonight," he repeated.

Not tonight? Does that mean some other night?

_Damn._

_._

_._

_._

_Do you like those writers who come up with lots and lots in the way of author's notes? Shall I be one of them? meh. I have to confess I'm not at all interesting and I can't think of anything interesting to say._

_Oh, I know - I can rec stuff. It's been around for a while now - but have you read Brown Study by littlesecret84? So good. And I have also lately enjoyed reading Paper Cutouts by twistedcoincidence_


	2. Chapter 2

Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely possible, though I assure you this story isn't about you. I wish it was about me.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Two (due to popular demand) (who am I kidding? ONE person said they'd like to read more...) (that's a majority, right?)

Our sound guy, who doesn't drink due to early trauma, sure enough drove us all out of there and dropped us off, one by one. So that was my Saturday night, and part of my Sunday morning. The first couple of hours of Sunday, anyway. After I got home I slept like a happy tired log and then I fucked around and did nothing for a couple of days except play my guitar and drink coffee - my favorite pastimes, apart from being in a dirty noisy bar or club yelling rock and roll at people.

On Tuesday I was woken by a text and then a phone call from Carlisle saying there was an urgent band meeting at the office at twelve. He even sent a fucking follow-up email. Talk about overkill. Perhaps in a minute there'd be a carrier pigeon pecking at my window pane, too.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be there," I'd grumbled to him on the phone, because it was only ten-thirty, and what the hell time of day is that? I didn't even know there _was_ a ten-thirty in the a.m. If there was such a thing, it certainly didn't apply to the likes of me. I needed a full bucket of coffee before I could even squint at the clock on the microwave. When I managed to identify an 11 and a 00 I nearly died. I stomped around my apartment, half-awake and half-blind wondering what sort of reasonable person would call a meeting at the crack of midday.

And then just to put me into a sweet, obliging and co-operative mood, at eleven fifteen my door got pounded on. Who the _fuck_?

No points for guessing. God of gorgeous. There he was, and the bastard hadn't even shaved. He was taller than I remembered, and scruffier, and somehow gorgeouser, although there was probably some sort of illegality about that. His hair looked like three different hairdressers had tried to comb it at the same time and had each had a go at each others' sections, and I think his jeans may have been ripped. I only glimpsed that with my peripheral vision because quite honestly my eyes didn't get that far down. He was wearing a faded denim shirt that was open at the neck and I could see chest hair and I stopped right there as the survival imperative kicked in, right at my eye level. Seriously, if I got as far as looking at his chest hair, I would launch myself right at him, and either we'd go for broke on the floor, or he'd give me some sort of ambiguous, "I want you but I can't" thing just like he'd done the other night. And then we'd wrestle, because I wouldn't take that for a half-assed second.

I had devoted quite a bit of time after I got home on Sunday to wondering just what exactly the story was with Edward Don't Kiss Me Cullen. What sort of a guy won't let you kiss him but is perfectly happy for you to sit on his knee for hours? And what does "Not tonight" mean? And why would he grin and laugh at me like I was his new favorite comedian and then not pin me to the fucking wall with kisses and grinding? I'd wondered about chasing after him, but I thought I'd been pretty clear and the ball was in his court. He hadn't called, nothing. I wasn't feeling very well-disposed towards him.

"I'm not Miss Tardy any more, in case word hasn't gotten round. I'm Miss Punctuality. There's no need for you to be here," I said, going to shut the door in his face, because, really, fuck off, Smiley.

"I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I'd drop by," he said nonchalantly.

"You mean you wanted another look in my underwear drawer," I retorted, and he had the nerve to raise one eyebrow at me! He didn't deny it, which anyone with any manners would have done.

"Now that I'm here, do you need a lift to the meeting?" he said, stepping past me into my apartment. "Are you ready?" He looked around and he looked slightly appalled and I knew the place was a horrendous mess, but that is because I am a fucking artist, not a housekeeper.

"It's funny, but I get ready more quickly when I don't have someone breathing down my neck," I told him.

"I'm not breathing down your neck," he answered, which was a total lie, because from where he was standing, he was breathing down my neck all right. God, I could feel it.

"Why are you here? It's the middle of the day - midweek. Didn't you just graduate with some impressive communications degree or something? Why are you so unemployed?" I scowled, looking around for my keys, my wallet, my phone, my shoes, my sunglasses and all the other necessities I couldn't quite find. My place really did look like it had been ransacked.

"Actually, I'm not unemployed," he drawled. "I just got a job."

"Well, good luck with that. What is it? A Botherer? I think you'll be very good at it. Pass me that jacket," I said, and he handed me my jacket which had most of the things I was looking for in the pockets, so once I'd laced my sneakers on I was ready.

"I'll let Carlisle fill you in on the details of my employment," he said cryptically on the way out to his car.

I had been in a perfectly good mood before I'd been woken so rudely by Carlisle, and I would have remained in a perfectly good mood if I hadn't been visited upon by the presence of the dark fuckwit. I punched his car radio on, and the channel was set to some classical shit and I called him a retrograde wanker and he laughed out loud.

"It might do you some good to listen to some of this," he said, and I would have punched him but he was driving, and I didn't want to risk highway death. I would have run my hand all the way up his lean thigh, too, but again with the driving and possible fifty-car pile-up resulting in tragedy business.

"What do you mean by that?" I scoffed instead and he kept his eyes on the road.

"This music is very soothing. You seem a little wound up," he said.

"I'll wind _you_ up in a minute," I growled, to more laughter.

I expected he'd bugger off once we arrived at Carlisle's office, but to my surprise he came in. He sat and chatted with his dad which I suppose he was perfectly entitled to do, but when the other band members turned up he was still sitting there looking like he wasn't going anywhere.

"Great news," Carlisle announced once we were all assembled. "You're aware we got that slot on the festival program a couple of weeks ago because one of the bands pulled out? Their singer has been under the weather, and they've just withdrawn from a twelve date tour supporting The Frightening Little Monsters and it's been offered to us!"

The five of us in our band all turned and stared at one another, and I was the first to let out a loud whoop. The Frightening Little Monsters were a band we all loved. _Twelve_ shows! Stone the mofo crows! We all started cheering.

"It's going to be hard work, people. Four nights on, one night off, four nights on, one off, then the last four. There's going to be a lot of actual time on the road, you'll be driving for hours in between the venues - this is the biggest thing we've done. As you can imagine, all the venues will be around five to six hundred capacity - " he started talking business stuff and Mike and the guys were paying attention while Lauren and I just clutched at each other in excitement. The Frightening Little Monsters were not only an excellent band, they were _babes_. The vocalist, Jasper Whitlock, was a fucking sexy freak.

"Oh my God!" we whispered excitedly to one another. "Bring it on!" My palms were already sweaty, just thinking about it all.

"So what happened to the other band anyway? What's wrong with their singer?" I asked when it seemed Carlisle had stopped talking about the boring stuff.

"She got involved with someone on the band's road crew, and she's pregnant. She's too sick to travel," Carlisle said evenly, and who knows why, but all the boys turned to look at Lauren and me.

"Fuck off, everyone. _I'm_ not going to screw the crew! Or get pregnant! Neither's Lauren. How fucking stupid would that be?" I exclaimed, and they all turned back to Carlisle.

"Okay, here's the thing," he said. "The first show is Friday, here in town, then Saturday you hit the road, literally. I can't come out on this tour, I'm very busy with negotiating contracts, I've got meetings to attend. Kids, you know I'm trying to get you to Europe. I just can't come. You'll have to manage without me. Erik will be along to do the sound and we've got Sam on board as guitar tech. You're all going to be fine."

This was a first. We'd never been anywhere without Carlisle.

He wasn't finished. "Bella, you haven't had a workload like this before. You're going to have to watch your partying. Drinking to excess and not getting enough sleep will take a toll on your voice - all singers know it. You're going to have to be careful."

Careful shmareful. I frowned very hard at Carlisle. I was going to have a fucking good time, that's what I was going to do. The Frightening Little Monsters, rock beasts, and Jasper Whitlock, boy candy. Yum, fucking yum. Let. Me. At. The. Fun.

"But who's going to be tour manager?" Mike whined, like the baby he was. "_And who's going to nanny Bella_?" He almost sounded nervous.

Carlisle smiled, proudly. "Edward," he said.

.

.

.

Omfg, Bella on tour with GOG and schmexy Jasper. Do any of you want to read more?

I'm going away for a couple of weeks so the next update will be a while.


	3. Chapter 3

All characters property of Stephenie Meyer, although if you knew me at all, you'd think Bella was a bit of a Mary Sue. Like, totally.

Hotting up a bit now folks. Chapter Three.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

You have got to be fucking kidding me. My jaw dropped to the floor and I know my expression was incredulous.

"What does dear _Edward_ know about being a tour manager?" I demanded. "He's got no experience! Hasn't he just been bumming around at college for years, taking longer than anybody else does to get a degree?"

"I'll tell him everything he needs to know," Carlisle answered smoothly, though with a warning in his tone, which I ignored.

"What will he do if there's a problem with the p.a? Does he know the difference between a flat fee and a versus deal? Can he talk hotel managers into late checkouts every day? Is he really going to be monitoring how much I _drink_?" I was approaching screech mode. The thought of that pleased-with-himself guy in my face every fucking day telling me what time I had to wake up - and by the way I am _not_ a morning person - was too much. That smug fucking guy who had held my underwear in his hand and wouldn't kiss me?

"I'll tell him everything he needs to know," my smooth-as-fuck manager answered. "And Bella, the decision is made and I am entirely comfortable with it. I am your manager because that's what you pay me to do. If you lack confidence in my managerial decisions perhaps we need to have a talk about your options." Beneath the calm exterior he always presented, he was getting mad with me. I'd kind of just insulted both him and his son.

"Bella, shut up. Edward will be fine. Just shut up," Mike said to me. Edward sat leaning back on his chair, legs spread wide apart, hands clasped behind his head, smirking.

"Okay, great. Let's just go out on the road with this _virgin_ and see how it all goes," I muttered. I swear the bastard snorted.

Carlisle had a couple more items on the agenda while I sat like a little dark cloud.

"Ben, we're using their kit, but we'll take your snare, of course. We'll get you new skins tomorrow - Sam will pick you up and you can go to Drum City and put them on the account. Sam's getting strings for everyone as well. Some of these shows will be filmed everyone so you can be as grunge as you like, but remember, Bella, some of your bizarre ensembles will end up on youtube. Mike, we've arranged a shared backline - will you want your own amp?" and so on. All the sort of stuff that Carlisle knew all about, and precious Edward knew nothing about. I hoped he was listening hard and taking notes. If he didn't know what backline was I would scream.

I had my own agenda to think about as well and I really needed an eyelash and brow dye. Checking over at Lauren I saw she did too.

"Salon de Beauté?" I said to her when Carlisle finally stopped talking. There was another snort from Edward's direction.

"_And your problem is_?" I glared at him. Mr Tour Manager needed to know what it took for me to go on the road.

"No problem," he shrugged. Mike did the eye roll, I saw him, and Ben and Ron exchanged glances. They knew me very well.

Once we were all dismissed and Carlisle went back to the phone he normally had glued to his ear, Lauren and I went and grabbed coffees and hit the thrift stores. Twelve shows? We needed a whole new wardrobe. Then again, touring represented plenty of opportunities to acquire new clothes. On tour we played music, partied, shopped, ate and slept, in that descending order of importance. And gossiped. We got on really well. Lauren was probably about the only girl in the world who would put up with me, really.

"So, the Frightening Little Monsters," she breathed as we browsed through second-hand evening gowns. "Their bass player, Tyler Crowley? I am just going to _die_ when I meet him."

"You'd better not let Jamie hear you say that. You'd better not be moaning 'Oh Tyler, Tyler harder harder' while you and Jamie are doin' the do," I said. "Anyway - _Tyler_, really? For me it's all Jasper - he's the Sexinator."

"Too straggly and skinny. But hey, what about Edward? You and him had that whole sitting-on-the-knee thing happening..." she said, watching for my reaction.

"There's nothing gonna happen with _Deadwood_. If there was you'd know about it already - I'd be crowing. But I went home by myself that night, remember? And anyway, he's crew. Don't screw the crew, it's the golden rule."

"Yeah, _right_." She wasn't buying it. She'd known me since junior school. I'd never sat on anyone's knee in the band room. "But you kissed him!"

I sighed. "Yeah, I did, but Lauren, he wouldn't kiss me back. He said 'Not tonight'. What does that fucking mean? It means no, doesn't it? He just didn't want to say no straight out."

"Not tonight? It means not yet," she frowned. "Maybe he's got a girlfriend and he was attracted to you, but he has to have to break up with her first so that he wouldn't be cheating?"

"Fuck knows. I'm completely over it," I shrugged, so subject closed. We needed to concentrate on the serious business of picking our outfits to dazzle and daze people over the next dozen shows. I grabbed several dresses and so did she and we went to the fitting rooms.

I emerged a happier little Bella and spent the rest of the week working on my masterplan for the first show on Friday. I wasn't fucking over it, as a matter of fact I was _on_ it. So maybe Edward already had a girlfriend? Yeah, that sounded plausible. If Lauren was right, that actually meant he was a good guy. Kudos to him. It made me want him more. I was being a bit all over the place, and I didn't think beyond formulating my plan of attack and anticipating its success with relish.

We rehearsed on Thursday, Mike got mad, Ben and Ron didn't say anything and Lauren shook her head at me sadly. Everything was right in the universe.

Edward turned up on Friday to take me to soundcheck and I was as nice as pie.

"Ready, Mr Driver," I said, opening the door as soon as he knocked. I was standing there with my gig bag packed. He looked suspicious.

"How come I'm the only band member you pick up? I asked sweetly following him to the car, checking out his ass.

"You're the only unreliable one," he answered, opening the door for me.

"Well, aren't we all just lucky we have you?" I said. "So I get where I need to be?"

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked.

"Just marvellous," I nodded.

How do you tell if a guy has a girlfriend? You can't. While he drove I looked for clues. I couldn't tell from his arms or his shoulders or his neck, but his fucking hair looked like someone had just been pulling desperately on it while he ate them out. Oh shit. It always looked like that though. He was wearing a tatty old dark green shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and I could see the muscles in his forearms - the arms he had resolutely refused to wrap around me while not shoving me off his knee. An enigma wrapped in a puzzle dressed in a fucking shirt that matched the color of his eyes.

And all this was going on while I was nervous and excited about meeting the Sexinator. Edward was the Gog, and the Sexinator was this slight guy with a bad hairstyle and enough nervous energy to power the city grid from the looks of him in the videos I'd seen. He somehow had a smile that looked open and innocent and friendly, but when he wasn't wearing it he exuded this air of extreme "I will do dirty things to you'. The Frightening Little Monsters were going to go stratospheric, and they deserved to because their music was good, and Jasper Whitlock had the charisma to turn blood to lava.

And I was going on tour with both of them.

The Monsters weren't around at sound check and Edward was off talking to the venue manager which was good, because I wanted maximum impact when I went into Operation Shock The Fucking Pants Off Edward So That He Dumps The Girlfriend He Might Have. And also Operation Stop Him Being So Fucking Arrogant And Complacent Towards Me. And just maybe Operation Hello There Jasper, I'm Bella, Have You Noticed Me?

Lauren and I took ourselves off to preen and primp after sound check and I changed from my jeans into the dress I'd brought. It was gorgeous - a sleeveless turquoise satin sheath with a high neck. It was very tight and fell all the way to the ground. It was actually a little long, but I had platform soled black lace up boots that raised my height by about four inches so the dress wouldn't trip me up.

"You look great, but you're not going to able to move around much," Lauren said doubtfully, eying the way the fabric stretched tightly across my thighs as she changed into her own dress, which was gold and flared from the hips.

"Oh, I'll be all right," I answered, back combing my hair to make it stand out wildly and applying a lot of black eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow and blood red lipstick.

"You look like a succubus," Lauren said as I admired myself in the mirror, which was exactly the effect I was after.

The lights were down when we took our places on the stage and when the faders brought up the back and front washes with the ringing opening chord I stood absolutely still, eyes closed, surging into the first song. We never started with anything slow because we always figured we'd come out all guns blazing, but tonight we began with a ballad. This was the Monsters crowd, and probably most of them hadn't seen us before. I didn't move except for my mouth and the audience seemed transfixed. We built the pace up really slowly, me still standing center stage, moving slightly as I felt the compulsion from Mike's bass. I looked round at him now and again, and this was the only time we ever got on, when he was playing and I was singing. He would have walked out on me years ago if this thing didn't happen between us when we performed, if this switch didn't flick on, if this current didn't flow. But it always did. Mikey and me pulsed on the same wavelength and as he and Ben built up the intensity, so did I.

We only had thirty minutes in this support slot. Thirty minutes to make the audience love us and want us and scream for us. I knew Mike was puzzled that I hadn't started jumping around, that I was so subdued, but I also knew from looking down at the upturned faces that I had the audience spellbound. I was giddy with power.

In the second to last song I looked across at Lauren and beyond her to side of stage and there stood Edward, expressionless, watching me. As I looked, Jasper from the Monsters stepped past Edward and stood in front of him, slightly to the side. Fuck me. Doublefuck me. This song was much faster, and I moved to Lauren who had a keyboard solo coming up and stood behind her. I put my hands on either side of her waist and slowly dragged them down her hips. Then I slipped the one still holding the cordless mic around the front of her to her belly and with my other hand I pulled her long hair aside and kissed her on the neck. She nearly stopped playing. Glancing to side of stage I saw Jasper's eyes had widened and his eyebrows had raised. Edward's eyes had narrowed. In full view of them both, and whoever could see from out front, I stuck my tongue out as far as I could and licked slowly and luxuriantly up Lauren's neck from her collarbone to her ear. She was salty and sweaty and actually tilted her head to the side to give me greater access. The audience started howling.

The beat kept building up and I swirled away from Lauren now and went back to the middle of the stage. My next move was totally orchestrated but I'd practised all week to make it look spontaneous, and had used a hell of a lot of sellotape on the inside of my dress. Pretending to find its restriction of my movements too frustrating, I ripped the lower half of the dress off with a scream, leaving barely enough material to cover my panties, and revealing torn fishnets. No-one knew I was going to do it. My stoic bandmates barely missed a beat, but there had been a microsecond of hesitation that I heard although no-one else would have noticed.

The audience went absolutely beserk and I leapt out in front of the foldback wedges, head high, triumphant and making eye contact with as many people as possible as we went into the last song. We were fucking _win_, all over.

Back in the band room no-one spoke for a minute or two, except me.

"That was fucking _unreal_! They loved us! We're so fucking brilliant!" I said, but everyone was just looking at me.

Finally Mike said, "Bella, we are a _band_. We're not a lesbian porn act. We want people to like us for the music - not because the fucking singer fucking makes out with the keyboard player and then rips her own fucking clothes off. We don't need your ridiculous erotic spectacle - we only need your voice."

"Oh, lighten up why don't you? It's a show. We're putting on a _show _for fuck's sake," I snapped at him.

We could have kept arguing, but the door opened. All four of the Frightening Little Monsters stood there, Jasper in front. The look in his eyes was frankly, one of admiration and perhaps complete lust.

My band having been reduced to muteness, I stood up, wild hair, smudged lipstick, indecent dress and all.

"Well, hel_lo_ boys," I purred, stepping forward.

Jasper ignored everyone but me.

"Well, hello _girl_," he said in a slow, easy Texan accent, and I fell.

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	4. Chapter 4

Stephenie Meyer = ownership of characters

Whoever I am = ownership of improbable plot

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

What are we up to now? Oh yeah, chapter four

I mean, I really _fell_. Those platform boots which had been obedient and supportive throughout our set went into rebellion mode somehow in collusion with my ankles and I came tumbling down. Luckily the Sexinator wasn't quite standing in the target area to be knocked over by the harlot train crash that was me. Unluckily I staggered into Gog who had materialized in the doorway and I nearly knocked him over instead. When I say unluckily I don't exactly mean that. My face landed _smoosh_ right on his chest, my parted lips more or less exactly smack-bang in the open v of his shirt collar, directly on his skin. Apart from being mortifying it was fucking hot. His arms encircled me reflexively and he took a step backwards and I felt my weight on him. My leg went in hard between his thighs where there was nothing to feel, of course, except a soft bulge. I hoped I hadn't hurt him. I hoped I hadn't _damaged_ him. I tucked my head forward while he took me by the upper arms to prise me off his body and while surrounded by my hair I licked my lips to get the taste of his chest. _Damn_, he was salty. And fine.

I looked up and was just in time to catch the disappearing flare in his eyes of something older and stronger than him or me. Something that wasn't related to him-ness or me-ness, something very base and one-dimensional that happens when a female body slams unexpectedly into a male body and they each go oomph... Commence Docking Procedure. Only of course, that wasn't going to happen. A surprised reaction must have been all over my face as I stared up at him - it was certainly on his. But then his cognitive awareness took over from his primitive brain and he said sternly, "Pull yourself together, Bella," while settling me back into an upright position.

I shut my mouth and got my legs back underneath me and looked around. Jaspinator was grinning widely at me, Mike was wearing his favorite Christ you're a fuckwit expression, and Lauren was gazing past me at Tyler Crowley with a face that said Take me I'm yours. He was looking back at her, not exactly in the same way, but in a sort of Hello, you're cute way. Man, was she going to get in trouble. I was going to get in trouble, I could already see it, but at least I didn't have a fucking boyfriend.

Introductions were made all round and we shook hands and it was all pretty neutral even though Jasper's Texan purr nearly made what was left of my dress fall off. Edward went away to attend to important tour manager stuff, maybe like checking in with the merch person to see how our stock was going and checking in the door bitch to see how many people were in because that's the sort of thing Carlisle would be doing, and the Monsters went back to their own room. Without the immediate threat of spontaneous combustion I sat and buzzed out - right the way out of my fucking head. Edward. Fuck. Jasper. Fuck. Bella. The word fuck, infinite as it is, didn't even cover it.

After our band boys had wandered off somewhere I turned to Lauren.

"How are you doing?" I asked her, reasoning she _had_ to be doing better than I was. She'd had less alcoholic beverage, for a start, since I'd been throwing back the vodkas between songs.

"Oh, yeah, you know. I'm going to get through this," she answered bravely.

"Course you are, sweetie. Is it really that bad?" I asked her with sympathy. Lauren is not a dickwad like I am, so this was OOC for her.

"No, I guess I'm just being stupid. It's a fangirl crush, that's all. Can you believe it - I look at _photos_ of Tyler and I feel a connection? It's so stupid," she sighed. "Seeing him in the flesh like that makes me go a little wobbly."

"Lauren, I just don't get it. What about James?" I asked her, but I had a sinking feeling that I did get it. Lauren and James had been together a couple of years, they were pretty happy and things were good between them. But apparently something purely chemical went on in her when she so much as _thought_ of Tyler, and it was inexplicable. It could undermine her relationship if she wasn't very careful. I wasn't even in a relationship, but pheromones or chemistry or something were acting on me when I was around Edward - or maybe it was just that my sizeable ego recognized a matching strength - I don't know.

But it wasn't only Edward. Over the past few months as The Monsters gained a media profile, when I'd seen photos of Jasper Whitlock pouting I'd felt vaguely unstable. Now here he was in clutching distance and there was danger in the air. It would be best for me to avoid them both altogether, but no, whoop-de-doo, I was going to spend two weeks in close proximity with both of them - twin harbingers of Bella bedlam. How colossally could I fuck up? We'd all see soon enough. Me and Lauren, at least we'd be together on our downward slide to hormone doom.

"Lauren, you funny little dreamer. Just talk to Aunt Bella and I'll see you straight. I am a worldwide expert on crushes, relationships, and all things Guy. I'm here to help," I told her as reassuringly as I could because I thought it might benefit me to focus on someone else rather than myself, and she smiled a little.

"Yeah, Bella, don't we just know it," she said and I took her hand, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek just as Edward walked back into the room. He saw me kiss her and then his gaze shifted to mine and Lauren's linked hands.

"The Monsters are going on right now," he said, and it sounded curt. So what? I pulled Lauren up and she and I sallied past him out of the room and towards the side of stage area.

And fuck me sideways The Frightening Little Monsters were just that. Their rhythm section was so tight they hit every beat together like their brains were connected, but so loose they lagged behind like a slow fuck. I hadn't understood Lauren's Tyler thing at all when I met him but now - seeing him play, with his bass slung low across his groin, and hips jutting into it like - you know - I found myself mimicking his movements. He didn't play anything fancy at all, no runs, no riffs, just solid pounding, and that's what his pelvis did, too. Poor Lauren had her eyes half closed and she might just have been groaning. And the Sexinator just sexinated. His sweaty hair was everywhere as he stood there and swiveled with his narrow skinny hips, both hands curved around the mic and his mouth over it as if he was performing an obscenity. Now and again he'd look out over the audience with this incredible come-hither thing, like he was an anti-Moses who'd found the Red Sea already parted and wanted to coax it back together. And just from looking at him the entire female part of the audience was helplessly coaxable. You could see them all transfixed and wanting. But then he'd grin and he didn't look sexy at all, he looked prettier than a girl and like someone you'd want for your best friend. No wonder he and his band were so popular.

At one point he glanced over to me and Lauren and gave us a smile like sunshine. Tyler didn't look over at all, which was just as well because I was already propping Lauren up. If they'd made an eye connection I reckon she would have turned into a puddle.

Afterwards back in our room there was a mutual admiration session, with all of the Monsters saying they liked us, and all of us saying we liked them. Edward appeared to have everything under control - overseeing the load out, checking with the venue management as to figures, and somehow managing to keep an eye on the band room at the same time. Us and the FLM 's had by now combined riders, and I'd started on the bourbon, wisely sitting next to the Sexinator.

"Kentucky's finest, darlin'," he drawled, drinking out of the bottle and handing it to me.

"Three cheers for Kentucky," I answered, mimicking his accent and he laughed while I took a swig. As long as he laughed I could handle it.

Lauren was resolutely ignoring Tyler, who had said he liked her keyboard playing. Way not to act strung out like a paranoid freak, girl, I thought. He had turned to Mike in confusion at her rudeness, and the two of them were debating round-wound versus flat-wound strings, fucking bass-playing nerds.

I was just starting to feel comfortably numb when Edward reappeared.

"Okay, gang," he said, every inch sober as a judge. "It's time to clear out. Swan Collective, this is your boarding call. Monsters, we'll see you tomorrow."

Me, Mike, Jessica, Ben and Ron all stood up. Jasper smiled. Fuck, he had nice teeth. Yeah, and nice lips.

And me and my lot cleared out of there. Edward had Carlisle's car with the extra seats in the back so we could all get in. Our super-efficient brand-new tour manager dropped us one by one, and as he stopped by Lauren's place, I moved in close and gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder. "Remember, I'm your Agony Aunt," I whispered.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks," she said as she got out.

I was the last one Edward dropped off. He stopped the car outside my building, but when I went for the door handle, it was locked.

"Uh?" I said, cruisy from the whoops - vodka and bourbon, suddenly remembering he hadn't said a thing about the band's performance.

"So what did you think tonight?" I asked.

"I didn't know about you and Lauren," he answered.

"Me and Lauren what?" I said.

"I didn't know you had a thing going," he said. "Carlisle has never discussed your personal lives with me. I didn't know."

_What_? "I'm not with Lauren!" I spluttered. "Why would you think that?" And then of course I recalled the neck-lick thing, with my hands on her waist and her belly. And maybe the slight kissage, later. Oh, and the minor hand-holding.

"It's okay, Bella, you don't have to deny it. Me and six hundred other people saw you. And the footage is probably all over the internet by now," he said.

Fuck fuck. Carlisle had warned me about bizarre costumes being broadcast for public scrutiny but I had completely overlooked that bizarre behavior might be, too. I'd planned the dress ripping thing but the girl-on-girl business had been spontaneous. I was trying to get a reaction out of Edward. Not this kind of reaction, though. Not this calm acceptance that I was gay.

"Lauren and I aren't together! We're both straight. She even has a boyfriend!" I said, urgently.

"Really? It that's the case, you might want to consider how he's going to feel when he sees what you did tonight. And you also might want to think about the image you're projecting," he said, and flicked the switch to unlock the door.

I was agape, I didn't know what to make of it. Was this a putdown of my antics or was he genuine?

He walked around and got my bag out of the back of the car and handed it to me as I alighted.

"And Bella, whatever that business was the other night when you kissed me, I don't like playing games. Don't fuck with me. And I don't know what's going on with you and Lauren, boyfriend or no, but don't fuck with her either. My job on this tour is to look after all of you as individuals and as a group and I don't play favorites and you don't have a get out of jail free card. Clean your act up a little. I'll collect you at ten am tomorrow. Be ready."

His expression said nothing. There wasn't a trace of the delighted smile he'd warmed me with when I sat across his lap that other stupid long away and far ago time. There wasn't the 'me man, you woman' thing I'd seen when I'd collided with him, there wasn't a trace of the smirk he usually wore, there wasn't the narrowed eyed measuring when I'd tongued my female keyboard player for six inches of throat. Nothing. Just exactly who was fucking with who here?

"Uh, goodnight," I said, but he'd already gone.

I went in and rolled a joint and got stoned and refused to think about him. I went to bed.

But while my conscious mind was capable of ejecting him, my subconscious wasn't. I thought that he came back and that he appeared somehow on the inside of my bedroom window, and all but immobilized me with a stare as he came closer. I managed to sit up as he crawled on his hands and knees up from the foot of my bed over my coverlet and then he pressed me down into my pillows, with his mouth hungry at mine and his hand reaching for my hip, pulling me hard against him as his weight crushed me.

In a dream can you get what you want? Can you heck. Edward inexplicably sprang to the other side of the room when I opened my mouth to kiss him back, and when I implored him to return he simply disappeared. I woke panting and perspiring and couldn't get back to sleep.

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Fun times ahead for our heroine, we hope.


	5. Chapter 5

Um, Stephenie Meyer owns the characters.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter woo-hoo Five

The next day I was listening for his car, and I opened the door before he even knocked. I stood there with a scowl that should have withered him but he just said, "Good morning," and took my bag for me. I was fucking tireder than I'd been before I went to sleep, and I felt like _shit_. That dream had _not_ helped matters, and here he was again with that fucking hair, and ripped old jeans and a rumpled t-shirt. He was dressed the same as I was, actually.

"Do you own a fucking iron? Have you heard of hanging your clothes up? Is there a comb anywhere in your house? You're scruffy," I griped to his back and got no response.

Carlisle had hired us all a ten-seater van, and Lauren was in the back seat looking a little wasted.

"Shove over, Blondie, here I come," I said, scooting right next to her. "How's things?"

"Oh, Bella everything's fine," she said and I wondered why she'd said that, but I turned and saw Edward was watching us through the mirror. Checking on us for overt evidence of same-sex preference? Why should he even fucking care? Oh, yeah, because he'd come up with some crap idea that I'd tried to make Lauren jealous by flirting with him. Well that was his fucked-up stupid problem. Lauren looked so tired that I left her alone and anyway we couldn't have any sort of proper conversation with all the y-chromosomes around. I lurched up to the seat behind the driver's, since the other boys were in the middle.

I'd brought a pillow and I jammed it against the window and tried to sleep. This first drive was going to be six hours long, and I would have loved to just get stoned and daydream but before we even set off, Deadwood read the riot act.

"There will no taking of illegal substances on this tour. If I find or see, or hear of any of you having any involvement with illicit drugs I will take you to the cop shop myself," he said, and he didn't stare pointedly at me but everyone knew who the remarks were directed at. I was the biggest pot-head in the band. What a fucking great start. I thought wistfully of the joints I had all rolled up and ready to go in a cigarette case in my backpack and though I wasn't at all afraid of getting into an argument with the law-abiding control freak in the pilot's seat I might not do it right now.

Mike was in the front next to Edward and the two of them started on with the most unbelievably boring rubbish I'd ever heard. They were talking about the van's wheelbase! As if that's a thing! They were sounding really into it, like they were revheads as well as morons. I was really irritated and I wriggled around trying to get comfortable and my damn book was in the back with the luggage and Lauren was plugged in to her ipod and incommunicado and Ben and Ron had magnetic chess because they're idiots. Then Mike was asking Edward about his study and Edward was talking about journalism, and wanting to be a foreign correspondent for one of the major papers. He was saying he'd travel anywhere.

"Outer Mongolia," I generously contributed. "That's a hot spot for news. The Washington Post would send you there for sure. I'd even write a recommendation to them on your behalf."

I couldn't see his expression as I refused to catch his eye in the rear view mirror.

"Antarctica's another good one. A lot happens there. There's an annual polar bear moult. Why don't you just go anyway and write it up, and send an article back to the LA Times?" I continued.

"Polar bears don't live in Antarctica," he said stonily.

He and Mike started on about some other meaningless crap and I tuned out. Six fucking hours and we were only ten minutes into it.

When we stopped at a diner I wondered whether Carlisle had filled his wonder son in on per diems, which are daily allowances we get when we tour. They're for food, really, but Lauren and I don't eat much and we spend the rest on necessities like leg waxes and souvenirs. The boys spend them on burritos and game boy type stuff, and I reckon Mike pays a subscription to an SMS service called How To Whine At Bella - New Tips Daily, even though mostly he just goes with the tried and true. To give credit where credit's due, Deadwood did appear to have this very basic, yet important aspect of touring in hand, because he distributed the money and got us all to sign for it. When he handed me the receipt book I added an x under my name and flashed him my most winning smile. He didn't crack.

Well, he was just about to find out what life on the road with a hard-living rock band could be like. As soon as we hit the freeway proper we played I Spy for an hour straight. At first he was trying to play properly - but we never play properly. In our version, you don't need to be able to see the object, in fact, you probably couldn't. If someone said T the answer could be be 'tiger' or 'tremelo' or 'toboggan'. It was apparent to him straight away that we had all done a hell of a lot of road games, and we had evolved our own versions of them.

After I Spy we played Limerick Challenge. This was when we took turns to set a topic and everyone had to make up a limerick and the stupider it was, the better. I was grudgingly impressed when Dickward joined in and proved to have a grip on rhyme and meter that surprised me. He tuned in to our shared ridiculous sense of humor pretty quickly too. After that there was another favorite game, which is Guess Who I Am, where you think of a famous person and everyone asks you questions and has to work out who you are. My identity was Edward Cullen. Fucking hilarious. It took a while for anyone to get, but Lauren was the one who won. Flagpole-up-his-ass Deadwood may have snickered up there in the front but I couldn't really tell.

Then we played What's That Song, where you sing any part of a song, like the intro or the lead guitar break, and everyone guesses. Ben did So What by Pink which was pointless because we all knew it instantly. Ron did Bad Romance by Our Lady of Gaga-ness, singing the bass part and slapping his hands on his legs for the drum part, and we got it in about two seconds. When it was Edward's turn he started to sing something and the hairs on my neck pricked up. Firstly, because his voice was _stunning_. Fucking stunning, individual and husky and extremely accurate. He pitched way better than I did. Secondly, because I knew exactly what the song was, and it was one of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite artists.

"Well, first-timer, you're making this too easy. We all know that song by fucking heart because Bella got the cd and made us all listen until we were imprinted with it," Mike said, which was true. Edward's gaze flickered to me.

"Oh yes?" he said, with surprise.

"Guilty as charged," I shrugged, then turned away, pretending I could see something interesting through the window.

"Looking Back, I Should Have Been Home More, by Richard Swift," Lauren nodded.

And then Mike took over the driving, Ron went up front, I went back down to Lauren and Edward sat where I'd been, but sideways, accepting a challenge from Ben to a game of battleships. Our boys had all that handheld garbage, but Lauren and I could never be bothered with it. I started braiding her long hair which I often did, and then remembered it was probably a very lesbian thing to do so I gave up when I'd only done half her head and she whined, "Don't stop Bella, we're only halfway there, you can't leave me like this..." which was even more lesbian. To demonstrate our extreme and committed heterosexuality I started playing tickles with her until we were both shrieking and Mike yelled at us to keep it down, and then the fucking traveling companion stories started. Lauren and I had no alternative but to start singing loudly and tunelessly so that we couldn't hear the grossness and then our guys got onto the inevitable bodily functions discussion. When I say bodily functions, by the way, I only mean a couple of them. The ones with the eternal fascination for the male of the species - the ones involving the rear passage.

"Girls, you are just going to have to stop being so prissy about defecation and flatulence. It's perfectly natural. Birds do it, bees do it, and even educated fleas do it. If you don't shit you die," Ben said and Lauren and I vehemently denied any such thing and Edward really should have been getting the idea of the way the band worked by now. For me and Lauren it was us against the boys, unless there was anybody external involved. In that case, it was Swan People as a united front.

Then we pulled in somewhere again for a quick bathroom stop and for Lauren and I to make our usual bet on how long it would take for the boys to get up to what they always got up to when we'd been cooped up in a vehicle on a long drive. One of them would tackle another one, then all three would get involved and they'd wrestle around and end up with one, two or all of them on the ground laughing and red in the face and then someone would start with the nipple pinching. It _always_ happened. I don't know if was just our guys or if all guys did it, but there was a whole nipple fixation thing that would be let loose after hours in a car or van.

"You're _so_ immature," I informed them, and had to give Lauren five bucks because I'd said three minutes and she'd said two. Edward must have removed the flagpole while he was in the men's room because he had his head thrown back and was really laughing. He wouldn't be laughing so hard once they decided he was accepted enough to be drawn into it.

Of course, none of them ever laid a hand on me or Lauren, because none of them wanted to be kicked in the privates. Wise boys. And during the course of their regular juvenile conversations about biological eliminations no one ever mentioned menstruation. We girls were synchronized and our fortunate lads had a week a month during which they were lucky to be alive, quite frankly. They al knew it too, and there would be tip-toeing, which cracked us up and annoyed us at the same time. For some reason Lauren and I didn't get pissed at each other but we were more than capable of turning on the boys with snarls and growls. "Oh, shit, what's the date? Is it four weeks _already_?" they would yelp helplessly as they ran for cover.

Not long after the stop and the nipples and the three of them groping one another on the ground we were at the town we wanted and the GPS, which we'd named Cindy, was giving Mike instructions. Of course, I thought it was very funny to intone, "Wrong way. Take the first available left. Re-calculating. Make a U-turn," but with a few scowls and "fuck off"s Mike actually managed to get us to the venue.

The FLMs had already soundchecked and gone off to do interviews somewhere, so it was just us. Erik and Sam had traveled in the Monsters tour bus which was much bigger and had the gear in it, and they were ready for us.

"Bella, you're going to hate this foldback," Erik grinned. "You're gonna hear _everything_," and we played one song and he was right. Even my _inhalations_ were coming loud and clear through the speakers at the front of the stage pointing back towards us, never mind my voice. This was scary. I was always most comfortable when I had to yell my guts out and still couldn't quite hear.

"So, this is what it's like in the big kids' sandpit, huh?" Mike said, grinning from ear to ear. We'd never had it so good.

Ben was being a complete wanker, saying things like, "Can you get a bit more crack in the snare? I want more high-mids in the bass," and he was grinning his ass off as well.

"There's a weird hum, around 500 k's" I told Erik, which was rubbish.

He just snorted good-naturedly at me, and we piled back into the van and Deadwood took us to the hotel.

"Rock o'clock is twenty-one hundred hours, folks," he said as he gave us our room keys. "I will be knocking on your doors at nineteen forty-five sharp, so be ready. Anybody who is running late will have their pd's docked tomorrow, at a rate of five dollars a minute."

That pulled me up short, and I glared at him in outrage, though nobody else said boo.

"You can't do that!" I stated.

"I won't need to if nobody's late," he answered unreasonably, turning on his heel and heading for the elevator.

"What is this - fucking band boot camp?" I hissed as Mike scuttled along after him, followed by Ben and Ron, the fucking sheep, while I gaped at Lauren. That only gave us two hours to hit the shops, buy the t-shirts, have showers, vibe up, get dressed and get ready to rock Tinytown. Would we make it?

No fucking worries, as they say. I was a newborn paragon. Lauren opened the door at a quarter to eight to Deadwood's signature pounding and I sailed past him without a word, ready as it was possible to be. No shenanigans tonight, no impromptu half-stripteases, no suggestive behavior, just docs and frocks and rock. Jaspinator was watching from the side again, with Tyler next to him. I ignored them and concentrated on not concentrating, just feeling, just stream-of-conciousness loss-of-self full-sensory-immersion in what me and band were creating - the ebb and flow and push and pull and primal charge of our music.

After thirty minutes glorious minutes I stumbled off stage, heart still pounding in time to Ben's kick drum, eyes unseeing thanks to partial fucking retinal burn from the follow spot that had been on me for the entire set, and Lauren took my hand to guide me. The boys were right behind us with Sam was shuffling past to get our shit offstage and Erik helping him. Clapping and cheering still sounded from the audience over the music from the cd Erik had put on to indicate the break between bands.

Once I could see again, it was to find Jasper - smudge-haired and skinny, with his huge eyes and bee-stung lips - holding a hand out to me.

"That was fucking amazing," he grinned. "Bourbon? You and me, later?"

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Bourbon? You and me, later?

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_'Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it'_ by Cole Porter, but I don't know whether he ever said '_If you don't shit you die_'.


	6. Chapter 6

This is a true story! (I wish!) No, all characters are owned by Stephenie Meyer and any resemblance to persons living or dead is in my mind.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Six

The FLM's were a fucking inspiration. For a three-piece line up they sure had a big sound, partly because Tyler and the drummer, Riley, were such a solid and distinctive rhythm section. Their guitarist played dizzy, woozy shit that just slid the fuck all over the top of what they did, and then there was Jasper, Fuck-me-deadly. I went out the front to watch and the Sexinator was nothing short of dazzling, with his snakehips, and his raspy, husky voice, and that grin beaming like a lighthouse the whole time. I thought he must have more than the usual allocation of teeth and decided next time I got up close I was going to count them. With my tongue? Down, Bella, Christ! As soon as we were backstage together slugging bourbon, which with any luck would be within the hour, I would surreptitiously check them out. Meanwhile Lauren was standing and grinding in time right along next to me and we still hadn't really had much of a girlie talk but I figured we'd do it tonight in the boy-free sanctuary of our room once we got back after the gig. She and I could drool all we liked, and no-one would know. I was pretty sure she was only just holding the drooling in check, as she didn't take her eyes off Tyler.

When the set finished the audience howled and got the Monsters back out for three encores and Lauren and I stomped and yelled along with the rest of them for the first two, and then wandered to the shared band room.

Gog was nowhere in sight - good job, because he should be off working hard towards our greater success and glory. Earning his fucking keep, in other words.

Mike was in there talking to an actual girl, which had me grimacing with distaste.

"Did you finish that course of antibiotics? Did the rash clear up? What a nasty place to have it, " I said to him snarkily on the way past and he shot me daggers.

Jasper arrived a minute or two later and made straight for me, all skinny legs and tight jeans and tangled hair and his shirt sticking to him. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face, eyes closed, fingers long and thin.

"Bella, girl, get those shots lined up will you, honey?" he drawled. Oh, baby. You're standing there all sweaty and storm-tossed like that and asking me for something? Anything you want, it's all yours.

Our rider asked for beer for the boys and wine for me and Lauren. Our band hadn't gotten to the level of success yet where we dared asked a venue for spirits, but the Monsters were well into that stage. I went to the fridge and found a bottle of Maker's Mark.

"Better still, let's just drink it the time-honored, old-fashioned way," Jasper grinned. "Come and sit down right here," and he patted the chair next to him, holding his other hand up to me.

I sat while he twisted the cap off the bottle and took a mouthful. "God of Bourbon, I salute you," he sighed. "Here you go, babe."

I had lifted it my lips and was just about to take a swig when the bottle made a sudden sideways swoop.

"Huh?" I mumbled, following it with my eyes, and there stood my nemesis Deadwood, holding on to my next, actually my first, swallow of liquid amber, smiling at Jasper with a friendliness that belied the swiftness of his action.

"Bella doesn't share drinks," he said. "Bella has to look after her voice, and that includes not exposing herself to possible throat infections by drinking out of a bottle someone else is drinking from."

The fucking fun-ruiner! Whoever heard of such a bizarre and stupid claim?

"I believe bourbon kills most germs, streptococcus included," Jasper replied, with his easy charm. "But you're quite right. We need to take very good care of Bella's throat. I'll make sure I stick close and see that nothing bad happens."

Apparently the easy charm didn't work on Edward. "Thank you for your concern, Jasper," he said firmly. "But you don't need to stick close to Bella. That's my job. You look after your own throat and leave Bella's to me."

"The fuck what?" I spluttered, but he turned to the others and announced, "I am leaving for the hotel in ten minutes. Be at the van. Or else."

"Or else what?" I began but he'd already left.

"You own personal pitbull. Nice," Jasper grinned and I shook my head, muttering, "Just where exactly does he get off? Fucking ordering us around like a bunch of little kids..."

Jaspinator put his hand on mine. "He's right about your throat though, sweetheart. I should have been thinking. If you damage your voice it's all over for your band. You're the lynchpin. Anything goes wrong with the vocalist, it's end of story for the rest of you, basically. Look how you got onto this tour - the other band had to cancel because the singer wasn't up to it. I won't keep leading you astray like that. Separate glasses from now on."

"Are you colluding in my oppression?" I demanded.

"Is that what you call it? He's pretty high-handed, but he's trying to look out for you. And it _is_ only the second night. We need you to make it all the way to the last night, honey," he said, always smiling, his voice managing to sound suggestive.

"He's not like that with the boys! He's sexist, and he's got it in for me," I complained.

I did actually happen to notice Mike was risking a throat infection right then and there by engaging in a truly horrible tongue dance with the girl he'd brought back to the room. Quick fucking worker. He had all the appeal of a worm-eaten slug so I couldn't see how that had happened, but it was possible she was both desperate and of poor judgement. Edward hadn't said anything to _him_ about hygienic and safe oral practices!

"That ten minutes applies to you too, Newton," I called out to him and he didn't even acknowledge me. It was then I noticed Lauren and Tyler had their heads together, talking quietly. There was a distinct possibility that there was some exchange of inhalation and exhalation going on there as well. How come I was the one getting in fucking trouble when half my band was risking their fucking lives just being too close to other people?

"Are we at the same hotel? I can meet up with you later, Bella. We can discuss care and maintenance of the trachea," Jasper offered, but his band were already stars and we weren't. They were staying somewhere different.

I decided to go and find Lord Fucking Gog. It was a bit labyrinthine backstage but I found him striding out of an office with a sheaf of papers in one hand and looking at his watch. He didn't see me until he was almost on top of me.

"Bel - ?" he said, startled. One more step and we would have been much more closely acquainted.

"I've come to ask you a little question," I said nicely, and he raised one eyebrow and tilted his head, waiting.

"How come we have to leave so early tonight?"

The eyebrow went back down. "It's not early, it's midnight."

"Midnight's early in this game. It's normal to hang around after the show to unwind, you know. Well, you don't know, obviously, since you're new at this, so I'm telling you. The band plays, the band hangs around afterwards to relax. We chat with the other band. It's called bonding. It's very good for morale. You wouldn't want to be responsible for a drop in morale now would you?"

"You've got another ten shows to bond with the FLMs. It doesn't have to be tonight. Accelerated bonding is artificial."

"Oh, really? Well I happen to know you don't have a psychology degree and unless you did some sort of kooky faux minor as part of your journalism communications claptrap that remark is specious. A mother and a newborn baby can bond immediately - you call that artificial?"

"I'm leaving in seven minutes."

Fuck, he was annoying. He deserved a fucking medal for annoyingness. He went to keep walking, stepping carefully so as not to brush against me.

I snapped. "Okay, sergeant major, which admiral made you the fucking boss of me?"

"Carlisle."

"And who pays Carlisle?"

"Carlisle is paid by you to manage your career. He has appointed me to act on his behalf. _You_ are paying me to _boss_ you, as you put it. _I_ call it keeping this show on the road. Six minutes."

I was reduced to having to scuttle after him. "You know about your precious concern for my throat? You want to know what's bad for my throat? Getting mad. I tense up, I get constricted, my muscles spasm, and I start to get hoarse. It's very serious."

"Here's some advice. Don't get mad."

That was _it_! "Why are you treating me like this? Why do you dislike me so much? What is your fucking _issue_ with me?" I demanded, abreast of him now.

"I don't have an issue with you. I don't dislike you. I've got a job to do."

"It's because I kissed you, isn't it? And then you thought I had something going with Lauren - which I don't! And now you're just being a giant-sized prick and you'd better cut it out or I'm calling your Daddy and getting you taken off this fucking tour because I'm not going to put up with you!" I shouted.

"You're the one with the issue, Bella," he replied, and we were at the back door which led out into the carpark. "You're welcome to call Carlisle. He can't come on the tour himself, as you know, but he can probably manage to find a last minute replacement. He won't thank you for it, though. How about you get over your constant tantrums and childish behavior and act your age for the duration?"

I stood there with my mouth open, gasping at the nerve of him. He wasn't riled up in the slightest, and I was practically busting blood vessels.

"Just because you're so fucking good-looking doesn't give you a license to be an ass-hole!" I spat at him.

To my surprise, he looked taken aback for a split second, and he blinked. Was it because I'd called him good-looking, or ass-hole? Interesting. Once I'd worked out which one had gotten to him, I'd hammer it home. Was it the abuse?

"Fucking creep," I muttered, watching him closely. He didn't bat an eyelid. Ah-ha!

I might just let him stew overnight and then tomorrow I'd try a different approach. Yup.

"So that would be four minutes now, would it?" I asked him. "How about I go and round up the others and tell them Edward the four minute man is waiting? How about that?"

He put a hand up to his hair and pushed through it. "Tell them three and a half," he said.

Okay, had he had a sense of humor bypass, or did he just crack a joke? And did he just take me up on my double entendre at his own expense?

Docile and obliging, I went back to the band room, Edward just behind me.

"Guys and girl, we're heading out! Take the last train to Clarksville!" I sang.

Mike left the girl behind, Lauren left Tyler, Ron and Ben grabbed up all the beer they could carry, and Jasper saluted me with the bourbon bottle.

"See how easy that was?" I purred to Deadwood. "It's all in the delivery. No-one resists when you're pleasant about it."

"Thank you so much," he returned. "I'll bear that in mind."

In the van I was next to Lauren and I lowered my voice as the boys passed out beer. Not to Edward, of course.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, in an undertone.

They started singing one of the Monsters songs, and I would have joined in, ordinarily, but there was important business at hand.

"Yeah, pretty much, sort of," she replied, not sounding too positive.

"You need to fill me in on one or two things, madam," I said to her darkly.

She let out a snort.

"So do you, missy," she said. "Apparently a couple of people are showing a great deal of interest in your mouth."

Considering what had happened in the band room, apparently, she was quite right. We really needed to have a little girl-to-girl chat.

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_Take the last train to Clarksville _by the Monkees


	7. Chapter 7

Usual disclaimer applies.

It is my pleasure to present Chapter le Seven of

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Safe and boy-free in the haven of our room, Lauren and I took turns to shower, rinsing off makeup and sweat from the night. We sat pink and clean facing each other on the twin beds. This was a fucking first - usually when we were on tour, once we got back after gigs we were trashed off our fucking heads and could barely stagger into the bathroom to pee, never mind actually washing our faces. We usually woke up looking like pandas from all the smudged mascara and liquid eyeliner and had to scrub the lot off, bleary-eyed, in the morning.

"You first," I said, ready to talk, and she shook her head.

"No, you first," she demurred, and I stretched a leg languidly out in front of me, wriggling my toes.

"Did you bring any nail varnish?" I prevaricated.

"Yeah, sure. I've got a great really dark purple called Vampire Nights. Shall we?" she said, and bounced off to get her make-up purse. Then she started on my fingers.

"How were things with James when you left?" I asked.

Her brow was furrowed as she bent over my hand. "Oh, good. They're always good. He's lovely to me. He said all the rights things, you know, like have fun, and don't drink too much, and don't do anything I wouldn't do..."

"Oh, whoops - he said that? I guess he wouldn't suck face with the first cute bass player that came along."

"Bella, nothing's happened!"

Lauren had very pretty eyes, and she looked up at me with those eyes alarmed and concerned. And a little pleading.

"I know nothing's happened. But how are you feeling? I saw you pretend-lollygagging with Tyler tonight. Are you still, you know, feeling the _urge_? Has it gone away now that you've talked to him?" I asked, as she started on my other hand. I waved my fingers around in the air, blowing on them.

"No," she answered miserably. "I wasn't going to speak to him, I thought I'd keep my distance, you know, and then it would all go away, but Bella, he came to speak to me directly and I couldn't just ignore him, it would have been too rude. Talking to him was all very neutral, we just chatted about music, but fuck... He was giving me these _stares. _I'm not imagining it, he was totally staring."

"Like, what kind of staring? Staring like he thinks you're a freak?"

"No. Definitely not. Staring like the way I stare at him if I think he's not looking."

"Well, how did the talking go, then? Is he a dickhead?"

She shook her head miserably. "No, he's interesting and funny and I think we're on the same wavelength."

"Well, shit, Lauren. What are you going to do? What do you _want_ to do? Do you want to just fuck him? James loves you so much he'd take you back even if you cheated."

"No, I don't want to. Well, I sort of do, but I can't. I can't let James down like that, I just couldn't do it to him. But if I truly loved James, how could I feel this way about someone else?"

Poor Lauren, she really felt like crap, I could see it. Her hand trembled and she made a mess of one of my nails.

"Well, Lozzie, are you going to stay with James forever? Do you want to marry him? Have his kids? Is he that guy?" I asked her softly.

"I just don't know, Bella. Do you think people know for sure? Or do you think they just stay together because it seems to be working?"

"Jesus, don't ask me. I said I'd be your Agony Aunt but, Christ, look at me! It's not like I'm a specialist! What do I fucking know?" I shrugged.

"Well, anyway, Bells, to change the subject - what's going on with you? Jasper's flirting with you, he obviously likes you - or maybe he's just a flirt. And Edward's crushing _hard_."

"What? Edward? He's decided he hates my guts, I'm not sure why, I don't know what I've fucking done, or haven't done - and Jasper? You think?" I said.

"Oh, come on, Bella." My nails were done and Lauren sat back to wait for them to dry so that I could take a turn and do hers. "Edward's got it _bad_. That's why he's being such a bastard. He doesn't want to let his guard down. He doesn't know what you're doing. What _are_ you doing? Which one of them do you like? Do you even like either of them? Jasper looks like he's up for anything, but he could be like that every time he goes on tour. He's a bit of a girl magnet. I could ask Tyler if you want."

"Don't you ask Tyler anything! And you're wrong about Edward. He just fucking lectures me, and restricts me and he's a fucking pain in my ass. He's treating me like a fucking kid."

"Why don't you try being nice to him instead of fighting with him?"

"Oh, Christ, you're giving me love advice? Are you really in a position to be doing that?" I gave her the eye-roll Mike had perfected.

"Just sayin', is all," she shrugged. "Do my nails now? Who do you like out of Edward and Jasper?"

I sighed. "I don't actually know. I thought I liked Edward, and then I got confused because he didn't seem to like me back, and then, you know, the Sexinator effect kicked in and Edward started acting like a bitch..."

"Well, put two and two together, can't you? Edward sees you hanging around Jasper and he's jealous as fuck," Lauren said smugly. "He thought you'd be sitting around waiting for him and he can't handle that you might not be."

Too much. Too hard to think about. Can't cope. "You're good at this, Lauren. When did you get so insightful? Are you even right?" I moaned. "And more importantly, did you grab that bottle of chardonnay from the fridge at the venue?"

She smirked. "Sure thing, Bells. Half a bottle each, that's well under the daily recommendation for women isn't it? We'll still be in great shape in the morning."

"Uh, Lauren, I think it may be under the _hourly_ recommendation. I don't know what we're going to do all night. Pour me some right now, girlfriend."

In the lobby the next morning, us two girls were singing an inane greet-the-day song I'd made up on the spot as we met the boys. I was trying to be piss everyone off, naturally, but all Edward could say was, "See how much better you feel when you've had a good night's sleep?"

"Oh, yes, Edward I do. You are a font of wisdom, and the source of all things sensible and good. Thank you for looking after me so well. Why don't you give up your day job and do it full time? Oh hang on, looking after me _is_ your day job, along with your night job. My, you're a hard worker. I believe it's my turn to sit in the front with you today. I'm really looking forward to it," I smiled happily.

"Er, right," he said as he went off to settle the account at the reception desk. Lauren and I had used up two bottles of nail polish improving the frame of one of the pictures hanging in our room after we'd finished doing our nails. It wasn't our fault one bottle of wine between us wasn't enough to knock us out, but he didn't know that. Neither did anyone on the staff yet, as it wasn't mentioned. Vincent Van Gogh should always be framed in Vampire Nights, if you ask me.

We had a four hour drive ahead of us today, and I wasn't lying - I really was looking forward to sitting next to Deadwood. I had to elbow Mike out of the way, as apparently he didn't know anything about the roster I'd just invented.

"So Edward, tell me about yourself," I offered as we pulled out of the lot.

"I'd much rather hear about you," he drawled, one elbow out the window, flipping me a sly grin. Ok, so he wasn't going to let me get to him.

"Oh, no really, I'm very boring. You wouldn't believe how boring I am. There's nothing interesting to say about me at all," I assured him.

"On the contrary, Carlisle says you're a very interesting character," he remarked.

"Well, you know Carlisle," I said, shrugging.

"Yes, I do," he nodded.

"Did he tell you I was born in Venezuela?" I asked.

"No, he's never said that," he answered, surprised. It wasn't true.

"Yes, my father was an exhibition highdiver, and he used to perform on a circuit around South America, always dragging me and my mother around with him. I was home schooled, of course by a series of nannies and I speak quite a few languages. My mother was used to the traveling life because she'd been a diplomat's daughter. She grew up in Zurich. We used to go there for our holidays. It has great beaches."

Edward had been keeping his eyes on the road and I was prattling away, not sure how much attention he was paying, but at this he snorted loudly. At least he was listening.

"My grandparents knew Tolkien. My mother used to take piano lessons on a real stradivarius. She came from a very distinguished family and they were upset when she took up with my dad, because they thought exhibition diving was vulgar. They thought you shouldn't earn a living in a state of undress. My father's mother had been a trapeze artiste. She was called The Flying Foxy Lady. One day her circus, The Dingaling Brothers was performing at an open air rock concert in Tantamount and Jimi Hendrix was there. He fell in love with her and she inspired one of his songs."

Edward started to laugh now and I felt very pleased with myself. "I know a lot about all sorts of mysticism, you know. It's in my blood. What star sign are you?" I asked him.

"You don't believe in any of that rubbish, do you?" he asked.

"Of course I do. Our fortunes are written in the firmament. Don't you know about pre-ordination?"

"There's no such thing," he said shortly, but he gave me another glance. "My birthday is June 20th. Make of that what you will."

"Ah, you're kidding! That makes you a..." I had to think for a bit, because I really don't know anything about astrology. "Leo! That's just what I would have said. You're completely typical. All Leo's are tall and handsome and bossy. I'll work out your numbers now. What's your full name?"

"Edward Anthony Masen Cullen," he said, going along with me.

"Okay, quiet now while I add up. Letterology takes a lot of maths skills." I hesitated, holding my hand out and pretending to count silently on my fingers. "Goodness - you have a character number of eleven. It means you have bad taste in shoes and you're overbearing and conceited. That can't be right. Are you sure that's your name? What sort of shoes are you wearing?"

He nearly choked. "Okay, that's not the name on my birth certificate. I was born Edward Anthony Masen."

This was something I hadn't known, but I didn't miss a beat.

"That means your character number is seven and you're utterly charming and delightful. Gosh, that sounds more like you, doesn't it?"

He was silent for a moment as he smoothly overtook another car and then returned to the original lane. His driving was easy, confident and fast. If I looked at his hands and arms I felt a little flustered, a little hot around the edges. Okay, not the edges, the middle. The lower middle. Fuck. Don't look at his arms, he's rolled up his fucking shirtsleeves, he's quite pale and the hairs on his arm have a reddish tinge. I had been practicing strict avoidance of looking at his chest hair, which resulted in having to look straight into his eyes when I spoke to him directly, which was bad, but not catastrophic. If I saw his chest hair I'd want to lick it. Okay, fuck. Don't even think about that shit right now.

"What's _your_ number then?" he asked, without looking round. Of course he couldn't look around because he was concentrating on the road.

"Oh, I'm a one," I said airily.

"Which means?"

"Fuckhot and fuckawesome."

"Of course it does," he answered drily.

"Look, I'm not making it up. Go and read a letterology book. I can't help it if I was born like this," I insisted. "Oh, and in case you've been wondering, I can tell you right now that you and I are not compatible on an astrological level. That's liberating to know, isn't it?"

"Very. But I'm not a Leo," he said, a little cryptically perhaps, and I congratulated myself silently. Phase one of my plan was going extremely well, even if I wasn't sure exactly what it was. I kind of just wanted to unsettle him. I didn't even have a phase two, except that I wanted Edward Cullen eating out of my hand. Or eating out of somewhere else - fuck, did I really just think that? Note to self - never think aloud. Never, ever, _ever_.

"I didn't just think aloud, did I?" I asked him.

"I'm not sure if anything you say is derived from any sort of thought process, so no," he answered.

And then I sat smirking out of the window for a while, and he sat concentrating, if that's what he was doing, and I idly daydreamed about leaning over and licking his ear and biting his earlobe and nibbling down his neck while I stroked the skin of his throat where his shirt opened, and I'd slip my hand a little lower, unfastening buttons on the way, gently swirling my fingers around the hair there and then lightly scratching, searching for his nipple...

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" I asked him, hearing a noise and turning to him in surprise.

"No, you did. Well, you groaned slightly," he answered. "Are you all right?"

"Period pain," I said, quickly.

"Do you need to take anything? Do you need your bag from the back? Do you need me to find a drugstore?" he asked, all concern. The boys usually starting stammering and looking for somewhere dark to cower at any comments like this from me or Lauren.

"No, I'll just rest a bit, I'm fine," I said. I would be fine once I got back to my entertaining little fantasy about his nipples anyway. How responsive would they be? How would it feel to suck on them? How would he react? Why was I thinking this stupid shit about Deadwood? Because he was Gog. For fuck's sake, _never_ think aloud, Bella.

And then what about Jasper? Oh, fuck. As long as that boy kept grinning, I was safe, and so was he.

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Especially for you


	8. Chapter 8

Stephenie Meyer owns neither Deadwood nor Gog, nor the Sexinator nor the Jaspinator. However she can lay an inarguable claim to Bella, Edward and Jasper and everyone else in this story.

Meh-heh-heh! Already? you say. Yes, the eighth installment.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Eight

God, I love touring. I fucking _love_ it. I love spending hours with the others in a vehicle, whether it's a car or a plane, lulled by the motion and the motor, all alone in the hermetic space capsule that's my head, while all of us are thinking our own thoughts and listening to whatever music we've got shooting straight into our ossicles. In my case, since I never listen to an iPod, it's whatever crazy tunes my brainwaves happen to be playing.

Then someone will say something, someone else will join in with something either relevant or random, and we all go off the wall together, talking crap and playing nonsensical games, snorting our private jokes and in-talk. We speak the same language and breath the same air, and sometimes we have a connection that's just dizzy. Despite our ups and downs and moods, and occasional spinouts we're all fucking close. We are glued so damn tight, the five of us, and no-one can quite know or understand or penetrate the bond we have due to these sorts of times that we spend together. There've been so many long dark nights in bars after gigs or in hotel rooms when we've been drunk or stoned or speeding, and confessed things we'd never tell our parents. One of us lost their virginity at the age of fourteen in a scenario that involved four other people. One of us ran over and killed a cat and took it home and buried it in the back yard in the dead of night. One of us was a compulsive shoplifter. One of us plagiarized an essay for an assignment for which they got an A. The things we know bind us, although it's not just that, it's the shared experiences as well. When I'm fifty or sixty or seventy and this band has become ancient history, if one of these guys ever needs me I'll come running.

And I love hotels. I love sleeping in different beds, and waking up with a different window onto the world in the morning. Hotel sheets are crisp and hard and white and you never have to make your bed yourself, and on tour you never have to do dishes. Someone even cleans the bathroom after you've used it, and replaces the wet towels with nicely folded dry ones.

I love streamlining my possessions into a few necessities - toiletries and underwear and a couple of changes of clothes, and carrying just enough in my tour bag to live on, for a few days. A couple of articles of underwear, a toothbrush and some clean socks. I love turning up somewhere and knowing I don't have enough clothes for the shows, and I'll have to go out and forage to get them, like early man crossed with a shopaholic. I love seeing the look on concierge's faces when I ask for directions to thrift stores, and I come back with bulging plastic bags and mismatched shoes. Someone said to me once that closets are for baggage, and it's so true. On tour you can't take a closet. You've got what you can carry.

And then there's the shows. I am the luckiest person in the whole fucking world, because night after night I get to dress up like whatever I want, stomp round on a stage with a wall of sound behind me and around me, and I can vent, I can wail, I can roar, or I can stand as still as a statue and emote, all the while letting my voice and my body say things that vocabularies can't express. The guys and girl and I are a ten-legged, ten-armed, many-faceted creature and each of us bring a finely nuanced micro-meaning to the overall barrage we're sending out there, and I look down and see that people are _moved_. That's all I fucking want, is to move people. I can see the hip-sway, I can see mouths chanting the lyrics that I've written, I can see eyes disengaged but alight in the moment and the trance, I can see people transported, levitated, taken outside and inside. It's all I fucking want, and I get it, and I can sleep in until eleven o'clock. Who else in this damn world is so fucking privileged?

Deadwood got us to the next hotel and checked us in, and I didn't even care that the decor was brown and orange, I ran my hands over the textured wallpaper and lamp shades with sheer enjoyment, and we went to the venue and played pool lazily for a couple of hours. At around five we found a Mexican cafe to eat in, and met up with the FLM's for a quick hello, and Deadwood called Carlisle and we each had a little chat.

"How are you behaving yourself, hoyden?" he asked me. "Not giving my boy too much grief, I hope?"

"Jesus, Carlisle, I'm really worried about him. He needs a chillout-ectomy. We're going to stop at a hospital in the next town for his surgery. I hope you've got enough health cover," I said, and he chuckled.

"I hear the shows are going well so far," he remarked.

"Well, I don't know where you got that information from. Edward wouldn't know. He's too busy monitoring the swear jar," I said.

That night when we played, it was a riot, of course. Lauren and I had gone out and bought t-shirts two sizes too small, and I was squeezed into mine with my tits practically flattened, but they still looked really hot. I had tiny stupid tight jeans on, and my t-shirt was actually a boys' size eight, so it wasn't long enough and there was midriff aplenty and Mike said, "Christ, Bella, somewhere out there a pre-schooler is crying because he wants his clothes back."

Deadwood said nothing, Jasper said nothing, Tyler said nothing, although I saw him checking Lauren out from the back view. She had on a little skirt and these high-heel ankle boots with opaque tights, and he gave her the up and down like he was a tailor who was measuring her inside leg. She didn't see it, but I still thought, "Poor James."

I strutted around during the set like - I don't know - Karen O? Shirley Manson? Pink? Not that any of those rock goddesses would ever look quite so androgynous as I was, even with the little squashed boobies just managing to poke their tips up. I felt so good I owned the place, and we came off stage having been brilliant and awesome, and Jasper's big big grin confirmed it all. Then the FLM's got on and they were sloppy, but their music was like freedom and anarchy, and ours sure as hell wasn't. Theirs was unpredictable and throbbing and ours felt too shiny and tight and I started to talk to Mike and Ben about it and Mike was resistant at first.

"Bella, we're not interested in emulating another band. We're doing fine, people like our sound, that's why we're here, that's why things are working for us," he protested.

"Yeah, but can't you feel it? Don't you think we sound a little too cerebral? Like we all went to fucking art school or something? Like we'd be dud fucks?" I pressed.

"Speak for yourself," Ben said.

"Bella, you're uptight. You need to go back to your room tonight and flick the bean," Mike said. "We're doing fucking great. We're not going to change anything."

"I need to _flick the bean_?" I repeated shrilly, completely pissed off because he was not only missing the point, he was right on the mark, with all the unsatisfied lust eating me up the last few days, and that was when the Jaspinator walked in. I could only hope he had no idea what that phrase meant. Deadwood was close enough behind him to have heard too, and I sat in a split second vacuum of utter embarrassment. So I did what any normal person would do. I started a water fight.

Why do these places give you water anyway? We're fucking rock stars! We don't drink _water_! I took the cap off a bottle and sprayed a liter of the lame stuff over Ron and Lauren, who were sitting next to each other, and quite honestly, Lauren was already looking like a porn star with her little t-shirt that said "Kiss Me I'm Famous," and her hair damp and her face flushed from being on stage, and now she looked like someone's wet dream. She's a very sexy girl. She sat with her mouth open in a perfect pout, then grabbed a bottle to get me back.

The Monsters proved themselves able to chuck water with the verve of champions and within moments we were all wet, except Edward.

"I have to settle up with the manager. Stop that and don't start again. Do not electrocute yourselves. I repeat, do not electrocute yourselves. We're leaving as soon as I get back," he said, and turned on his heel.

"Bourbon?" I said hopefully to Jasper.

"That's my girl," he smiled back, and went and got the bottle. We didn't bother with shot glasses. Jasper grabbed two Pilsner glasses and filled them halfway.

"To watersports," he said. We chinked glasses and smirked at each other, and I didn't think too much of it until I happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the dressing room mirror. I hadn't worn a bra. In my soaked condition my breasts were high and tight and pretty much on show for one and all. Christ. I threw my drink down my neck and poured another. The God of Forgetfulness would help me out.

"H2O for all," I said, and Jasper grinned.

"Absolutely," he said, and to my utter disbelief, and quiet delight, he started to unbutton his soaking shirt. Now, he had narrow hips and skinny legs, and to the extent that I'd thought about it at all, I assumed he'd be skinny all over. But when he peeled that shirt off, I saw I'd been wrong. Jasper Sexy Freak Whitlock wasn't skinny at all. He was unf. Fuck. He was ripped and muscular and built and shit, I needed more to drink. So I had about another pint of bourbon, and he sat there shirtless and making conversation and cracking jokes and eyeing me and I vaguely noticed Lauren and Tyler seemed to be stuck in a tractor beam six inches apart from one another and Mike was a dickhead and I didn't really think about anyone else and then Deadwood came back.

He sure didn't look excited to see Mr Jasper half undressed. I wasn't paying too much attention to what I drank but it may have been in the vicinity of half a bottle of the good stuff, very quickly, while I was acting the life and soul of the party, waxing lyrical about the FLMs and their particular brand of excellence.

Deadwood didn't care about my fun time, and he rounded us up like he was a sheepdog and Jasper winked at me as I drunkenly rolled out, yabbering to Ben, "Don't worry about Mike, he's a navy brat, what does he know? Let's get loose, let's flow more, let's get sexy..."

In the van going back to the hotel I was far gone enough to turn on Edward.

"You're making us leave early again," I whined. "Things were just getting good."

"Bella, Carlisle told me you can't sleep in a moving vehicle. Therefore you can't catch up on sleeping during the day and you have to get enough at night. So we have to leave the venues early enough to ensure your maximum sleeping time. Everybody needs enough rest to ensure you stay as well as possible."

"God, you're a fucking marvel, aren't you? Always thinking of the good of others. How come you're so amazing?" I asked sarcastically.

"I don't drink, I look after myself, I eat properly and I sleep like a baby," he said, sounding perhaps a little preachy and smug.

"You mean you wake up every two hours wanting to suck on a nipple?" I suggested.

His jaw clenched and he didn't answer.

Lauren and I sat in our room afterwards for the customary rundown of the night's events. I'd snuck off at one point and flirted all the way to the safety limit with a cute bartender until he gave me an extra bottle of wine, so we had two between us. All we needed were a couple of joints and a party and we'd be right, but for some reason, I was leaving the joints I'd brought with me right here they were, packed in a ziplock bag in a pocket of my luggage.

"Shall we find the boys and drink with them?" I asked.

"You know what, Bells? I don't mind if we don't," she answered.

"Jesus, you're all loved up after a fucking ten minute interlude with Tyler, and now you just want to go to bed and dream of him?" I asked her, disappointed.

"Well, yeah, actually. You go. Take the wine," she said, and I sure as hell wanted to stay up and pin someone's ears to their heads and keep listening to music, and maybe have an argument so I shrugged and got up, after changing my wet t-shirt. It occurred to me too that maybe my dear Lauren wasn't anywhere near as loved up as she wanted to be, and if Tyler really had as much effect on her as she said he did, maybe she was hoping I'd leave her alone for a while so she could, aherm, flick the bean.

"You go, girl," I grinned as I headed out into the night.

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	9. Chapter 9

Characters are property of Stephenie Meyer.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Nine - already?

We had four rooms booked, since there were eight of us in the touring party, and the other three rooms were on the same floor, the first of them adjacent to mine and Lauren's. Visiting the boys seemed like a grand idea for a couple of minutes, until I remembered that boys are fucking boring and smelly and stupid. I suddenly had a much better idea, and that was to set about having a little old-fashioned _fun_, Bella-style.

I had a full bottle of wine, and the best will in the world. It was about one am, I was already tanked up on bourbon, and the night was fucking mine. What to do?

Well, if in doubt, I always say, hit the hotel pool. So I did. I had to find the stairwell first, where I knew there was a stupid layout diagram of the fucking place because do you think they could just have signs everywhere saying "pool" for the dummies? No.

I got out there eventually, chugging wine as I went, and it was fenced of course, with a locked gate, which was conservative of the management. Plenty of drunk people like to jump in a swimming pool after a bucket of bourbon and a gutful of white burgundy, everybody knows that.

So I put my wine bottle down carefully, because I wouldn't have wanted to spill a drop, and prowled the perimeter fence. Next to the door leading back inside was another door that said Utility Room, and I wouldn't be the girl I am today if I hadn't noticed that the letters weren't painted on, they were stickers. I also wouldn't be the girl I am today if I hadn't decided UTILITY ROOM is a really boring fucking thing to put on a door. I peeled them off carefully, and rearranged them to say I OIL MY TROUT which was obviously much better.

And then I clambered with extreme grace over the fence, nearly ruining my prospects of motherhood on the way, and nearly disemboweling myself too. I would have to write the manager a letter complaining about how hard that fucking fence was to climb.

Even in the inebriated state I was in, I knew swimming in tight jeans was a bad idea. Anyway I wasn't sure where there might be a clothes dryer, other than perhaps in the trout-oiling room, so the jeans had to come off. And then I felt like a dick standing around in a tight t-shirt and panties, so the t-shirt came off too. I folded them very carefully, leaving them under a conveniently placed sunbathing chair, and dived in.

That stuff I'd said to Edward about my father having been an exhibition diver had all been utter crap, of course. I made a splash like someone throwing in a manatee and hurt my belly bad in the process, but I recovered and swam a couple of leisurely laps, performing a sort of side-stroke, doggy-paddle, imagining I was in a synchronized swimming event. I was doing great until I heard a voice at the pool gate saying, "Excuse me, are you a guest in the hotel?"

Crap and fuck. Who the hell? I looked around and some old dude in some uniform was standing there. A fucking night watch person. He shouldn't have left the front desk, surely? What if someone wanted to check in? What if the phone rang?

"Yes, I am, so I'm here legitimately, you don't need to worry," I said with dignity, and my hands over my breasts, just in case. It wasn't too well lit, but you never know. "I'm staying in room something-or-other, I can't remember. One of them, anyway. It's on one of the floors."

"The pool hours are from seven am til nine pm. All the rooms have notices in them saying so," he said sternly. "Didn't you notice the lights were off and the gate was locked?"

Well, duh, of course I'd noticed those things but I'd ignored them for their sheer inconvenience.

"You'll have to get out. The changing rooms are closed too, I'm sorry," he kept on, and I stayed right where I was. Did he really think I'd get out in front of him in the state of undress I was in?

Apparently. "Miss, if you don't get out of the pool right now I'll have to page security," he said.

"Well, shit," I said. "I'm not actually wearing my bikini top right now, so if you don't mind I'll wait until you've gone."

"No, I'm sorry but I have to insist that you get out right away, and I'll escort you back to your room. Where's your towel? I'll pass it to you," he said, and I was trying to work out whether he was a filthy old perv or just a poor embarrassed hotel staff person.

"I don't have a towel. Could you find one for me?" I asked, and he nodded, turning to the fucking trout-oil room, for fuck's sake. He had a key, and disappeared inside momentarily, coming back with a huge towel. It was easily big enough to wrap me and a pygmy elephant, with room still left to smuggle a great dane.

"Thank you," I mumbled as he dropped it near the pool steps and faced away.

"I don't suppose you know anything about what might have happened to the writing on that door over there, do you?" he asked over his shoulder as I splashed my way out.

"Not a thing. Whatever it is you're talking about," I said, towel draped artfully around me and ready for a toga party.

He inclined his head. "We have surveillance cameras you know. Don't do something like this again, miss. Sometimes duty staff have no sense of humor."

"Like you, buddy. Thanks for the heads-up," I thought, as I waltzed back along the hall without my clothes, damn, or my cardkey, damn, or my _wine_ - the worst loss of all. I had to knock on the door and whisper-call to Lauren like a fucking loser to get her to let me in.

She opened the door all tousled hair and rumpled face, so she must have been asleep.

"Christ, Bella, what the fuck have you been doing?" she mumbled when she saw me. "Did you have a naked spa with Edward or something?"

Oh, my god. The words naked and Edward in the same sentence, with spa thrown in for good measure. _Quiet_, girl!

"Jesus, Lauren. Hush your fucking mouth!" I hissed. "No I fucking didn't! As fucking if!"

I swept past her and had a quick shower and dried my hair and found something to wear to bed, and she was out for the count again by the time I got out of the bathroom.

In the morning, Deadwood had something for me. An expression devoid of - well, expression - and my clothes from the previous night.

"These were given to me by a staff member this morning. Apparently they were found by the pool, with a half-empty wine bottle, at three am. Do you know how they got there?" he said.

"Nope." I couldn't muster a retort, because my head hurt.

"Bella, do you have any idea how dangerous it is to swim alone when you've been drinking?" he asked.

"Yup." Shut up, wise-ass. Throbbing here.

"Well, you probably need another five hours' sleep, but we don't have that luxury. You'll just have to hurry up and get ready - we've got a big day. Carlisle's arranged a live-to-air at a college radio station this afternoon, and you'll have a couple of phone interviews from the next hotel. You'd better shape up. Christ - do you need to be on a fucking twenty-four watch? Take an alka-seltzer and drink some water. If there are any more childish escapades like this, the sleeping arrangements will be changed and you will be sharing a room with me, so that I can keep an eye on you at all times. _At all times_. Are we clear?" he asked.

I was plainly still drunk, because I thought he just said if I was naughty again I could sleep with him. He wasn't just handing me a license to act up - he was issuing an invitation. New stated aim: TO MISBEHAVE.

I turned to stumble away, but he took my arm. "I'm not finished yet. I don't know if you understand quite how serious this could have been last night. Your room key was in the pocket of your jeans. Someone could have found it, and gotten into your room while you and Lauren were asleep. You could have been robbed, or attacked. Also, the night manager told me the security cameras had recorded footage of you vandalizing hotel property. He said he was prepared to overlook it, but you could have been charged with malicious mischief, which is an offense in this state. I managed to get him to delete the evidence, which of course was highly incriminating. Not to mention probably saleable. So Bella, you're going to have to promise me that you're not going to drink any more for the remainder of the tour."

What the fucking _fuck_?

"Are you out of your mind?" I blurted, hand over my eyes because the day seemed inordinately bright.

"No. I just want _you_ out of trouble," he replied. He was wearing that green shirt again, with a few buttons undone. He was a lot taller than me. I glared right up into his eyes, but looking into them was uncomfortable so I dropped my gaze and glared right at his chest. He was fucking lucky I wasn't biting a hole out of him, making a fucking ridiculous suggestion like that.

"I refuse," I hissed to the reddish hair there, and it was indication of how sick I felt that I didn't stick my tongue into it.

"I can take this further if I have to," he warned and I stared up at him again. "You look terrible. You didn't get enough sleep. Your eyes are red and your skin looks blotchy and you don't need to do this to yourself. Party when you get home," he said.

"_You_ fucking party when you get home," I snarled, not enjoying his description of my appearance, although I knew it was true. But I didn't only look like shit, I _felt_ like shit.

"Oh, I will. But I'm not doing it now," he said, still waiting.

"I'll think about it," I mumbled, and I shut the door.

That day, when we did the live-to-air, our first ever, my voice cracked on several notes, my headache just wouldn't let up, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole.

"See that button next to the mic?" the friendly dj said after we'd played, once we were crowded around the desk for a chat with him, "We call it a cough button. If you're talking and you feel like you need to cough or whatever, just press it and you'll be muted momentarily, so it won't go out on air."

I needed a barf button.

"Sorry, food poisoning," I gulped to the bright-eyed young dj, who was all eager and happy. And not hungover. I had to actually run down the hall to throw up in the bathroom.

Deadwood was sitting in the reception foyer, reading a newspaper, and he was expressionless when I ran past, although on my way back he handed me a glass of water. Afterwards we went straight to the next hotel and I couldn't crash because I had phone interviews to do. If I hadn't felt so bad I would have fucking loved crapping on and on about myself to total strangers over the phone, but I lay on my side clutching my belly and I don't know how I got through it.

And then there was fucking soundcheck.

"God, Edward, I have to go back to the room and pass out," I pleaded to Edward, and his face softened.

"I'm sorry, Bella, there just isn't time. I can see how awful you're feeling, but you're on in just over an hour," he said quietly.

I sat in the bandroom, miserable as sin, and the Monsters turned up and Jasper came straight over.

"Hey, gorgeous, what's up? You look tired," he said, sitting next to me and putting an arm around my shoulders.

"Yeah, I am," I nodded abjectly. I'd been hungover before, of course, and there'd been plenty of times I hadn't had enough sleep before, but I'd always been at home, and I'd always had the opportunity to lie around and sleep it off. I hadn't had to sit in a fucking van the next day for hours and then do a show that night. This tour, as Carlisle had said, was the hardest we'd ever worked, and I could see now why he'd said I should keep myself in check. I felt like death, and I had to sing. I hadn't been able to eat all day, I was weak and shaky and I had to muster up some energy from somewhere to go out on stage and perform like I meant it.

"A drink, darlin'? What can I get you?" Jasper murmured, stroking my hair.

"Actually, Jazz, I'll have an orange juice. I'm going to lay off the alcohol for a while," I mumbled.

"Are you, pretty lady? Then I will too," Jasper said, getting us both juices and sitting down again. He raised his glass to me with a wink and a grin. "Race you to the bottom," he added.

I drained my glass, and saw through it that Edward was at the door. You would have thought he'd be pleased at my wisdom and maturity. You would have thought he'd be pleased I was obeying his autocratic dictate. You would have thought he'd be pleased that I hadn't spewed all over the band room floor and halfway down the fucking corridor until he was ankle-deep in the stuff. But, no. Jasper's arm was around me, and Edward wasn't fucking pleased at all.

"Rock minus ten," he said, coldly.

Jasper walked me out to side-of-stage and kissed my cheek, murmuring, "Have a good one, sweetheart," and the others were there waiting for me silently, knowing I was a wreck and no doubt praying I'd get through the fucking set without collapsing, and we went on.

My band are all fucking amazing, and they all played really well, and the energy and excitement in the room made the air crackle as the audience yelled and cheered and heaved around on the dance floor. It should have been great - but I felt like a broken marionette. It all sounded like it was coming from a long way away; I'd forgotten how to move, my arms felt wrong and my legs felt wrong, like the strings were attached to the wrong limbs, and when the puppet master pulled, I could only flail about with no real connection to the music or to the others. And no matter how wide I opened my mouth, how much I expanded my ribcage, I just couldn't manage to take in enough air to project my voice the way I was used to. It was the most horrible show I'd ever done and I couldn't wait for it to finish.

I love the fans and I love the air out above them, I love the lights and spaces between them, and I sing to the back of the room and to each and every person; I make eye contact and I reach out and I feel like I have tentacles of sound to touch everybody with and to wrap around them. Well, that's what it's usually like for me. But I let everybody down. My band, my crew, the audience, everyone. I just felt like a lump of woe.

We finished and I slumped into a chair backstage and closed my eyes. And then the people started coming in, wanting to talk, asking us to sign things, wanting cd's.

"Not yet, folks, clear the room please, we'll talk to you after the Monsters' set," Edward announced, and shepherded all of them out of there, and he came and squatted down next to me.

"How are you doing?" he asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. I looked at it, sitting there, lovely long fingers and large square palm, and he dropped it quickly.

"I've been worse," I said.

"Fuck. I wouldn't like to see that," he said. "Look, you really need to hang around for all the autograph hunters to come back - they'll be disappointed if you don't, but I might be able to find you a quiet place to lie down for the next hour and a half."

"Yes, please," I said, and he found some room somewhere with a couch in it, and I lay down, and I didn't actually sleep, but I was sort of in a half-awake doze, and it was certainly the most restful state I'd been in all day. By the time he came back I was feeling a lot better.

"Hey, Gog, about that unreasonable promise you tried to extract from me," I said. It was dark in there and he couldn't see me grinning.

"Mm-hmm?"

"You got it. But only because I think it's a good idea, not because of some bossy nazi with a fucking power complex, not to mention an oak tree stuffed up his ass, who wouldn't know a good time if one tickled him in the ribs."

I heard him snort at me as we walked back along towards the door to backstage.

Then, "Ah, Bella, what does Gog mean?" he asked curiously. God he was tall. How fucking sexy.

"Oh, nothing," I smirked. I was feeling a _hell_ of a lot better. I put my hand very quickly to the side of his waist and tickled him in the ribs, and then I ran.

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Pop quiz: Who said "I aim to misbehave"?

If you answer correctly I will come and lick you. Actually, scratch that - it's no incentive. Yeuck.


	10. Chapter 10

All characters property of Stephenie Meyer.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Ten

And incredibly, when I got out into the main room and started talking to people out there, no-one else thought I'd been a lame dead-ass. No-one except my band of course, who always thought so anyway.

There were twenty or thirty people hanging around, and they wanted to ask questions and buy us drinks and tell us they loved us, and get us to sign any old scrap of paper they could come up with. One girl wanted Mike to sign her _boob_. I could have chucked my cookies all over again, it was so revolting. Not her boob - the look on his face. They both disappeared after that, and I couldn't fucking see why anybody would want him near any of their body parts at all. Maybe it was something about bass players.

Speaking of the mysterious appeal of bassplayers, Lauren, surprise surprise, was glued to Tyler. I bet she'd like him to sign her boob with his fucking tongue.

"So, Bella when are you guys putting out a cd?" someone asked and someone else said, "I heard you talking on the radio today and decided to come along, and you were amazing," and on it went. "Have you got any band t-shirts?" "Can I have my photo taken with you?" All straight to my head.

I had control of my limbs by now and was no longer staggering, in fact I was moving with my usual feline grace and I went from group to group, keeping one eye out for Deadwood, and the other for the Jaspinator.

Jasper found me pretty quickly.

"Darlin', feeling better? Another juice? Let me get it it for you. Or why don't you come with me?" he said, and took my hand. I'd had my ego so stroked by now I was pretty much floating on air, and I allowed him to guide me back to the band room. He got the OJ out of the fridge and poured us one each.

"Are you having fun, Mizz Bella?" he asked and by now I was. He and I were in there alone together, and he watched me as I took a sip.

"I am now, but I wasn't during our set, no. I was severely hungover after I more or less skinny-dipped in the hotel pool last night a little too long after the witching hour," I told him, and whoops. What I said had wiped the smile clean off his face. Could eyes darken? It looked like his just had. And had I noticed how perfectly formed his mouth was before? His lips were slightly pursed, and slightly open. Christ, I hadn't seen a finer mouth during two years of studying art history at high school, and looking at mouths formed by the greatest portraitists known. His was full, beautifully defined, and extremely expressive and pardon - was he speaking to me?

"You were skinny-dipping? With your band?" he enquired softly, his voice that Southern drawl that adds syllables. It sounded like he actually said "bay-and". It sounded like his voice could strip layers of clothing, and reduce me to last night's condition of pretty much nudity, apart from one very small pair of panties. And his voice could probably divest me of those pretty quickly. I had to make him laugh.

"No," I admitted. "I was by ma-seyulf."

He didn't laugh. Oh shee-yit.

"I got in a whole heap of trouble with hotel security for inelegant swimming," I added quickly. "I broke all fourteen points of the water code, so I'm going to lay off the alcohol until I've been to water-ballet school."

And he grinned again, averting what could have become a crisis.

"Ok, Bella, you're not drinking. Do you smoke?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"What _do_ you do?" he persisted.

I turn into a complete no-hope fucking natural disaster around sexy boys. Maybe it was time to get out of that little room.

"I chew gum. It's my only vice. Uh, I think our adoring public want us," I said, taking his hand, and he shrugged, and we went back out. Deadwood let us all have about another twenty minutes until he turned up with the cattle prod. I hadn't even talked to any more of the adoring public because the Jaspinator had been telling me tour stories and I'd been concentrating on keeping a distance of around a foot between me and him at all times.

As Deadwood was doing his rounds collecting us, we suddenly realized no-one knew quite where Mike was.

"He went off with some girl," Ron shrugged, and Edward swore. He went charging through the door, after ordering the rest of us to stay put. Mike was the only one of us who ever went off with people after shows, and he didn't have a girlfriend, so I suppose it was okay, apart from the gross factor. But we were on tour now, in a strange city, and he could be anywhere. He wasn't answering his phone.

It turned out he wasn't far. Edward found him and the girl on the fire escape, and he hauled them back inside. Fuck knows what was going on out there. Eww. I was fucking glad I hadn't been the one to go looking. And I was _so_ fucking glad it wasn't me solo on the receiving end of one of Edward's little pep talks for once. He very clearly told all of us to be responsible, to inform him if we were leaving the venue temporarily, and to have our phones handy and working at all times. And to _never_ ignore a call from Edward.

"Takes it all very seriously, doesn't he?" Jasper murmured to me.

"You have no idea," I answered darkly.

"Oh, it's a good thing. You're lucky to have him. He's running a tight ship," Jasper said. "God, we heard about a TM once who went back to a hotel with two girls offering him a threesome, and he had the night's takings in his bag - they tied him to a bed and stole the lot. He was found the next morning by the cleaners. The money was never recovered, and once they'd tied him up, the girls reneged on the sex."

"Ok, that's bad. The money part and the sex part. I guess Deadwood would never let something like that happen," I said, and God, I didn't know where my head was at. Would Deadwood go anywhere with two girls offering him a menasha twa? Not on tour, he wouldn't, I was sure of it, but what about otherwise? And come to think of it - what was happening to the takings from every night?

"We're moving out people, mosey on along," Edward called, and Jasper's hand was on my arm.

"See you tomorrow, lovely girl," he said, lips to my cheek for the second time that night, and I went out, grabbing Lauren on the way. She was flushed, pink spread along her cheekbones and even down her throat.

"Is it just you, or was it getting a little steamy back there?" I said and she actually giggled. She's not the giggling type.

"Fuck, Lauren, you're so fucking hot right now, let's sit up the back and make sweet love," I said loud enough for everyone to hear, and we clambered in.

Mike got up front with Edward, completely unabashed about recent events, and started to discuss football, with Ron sitting in the middle humming, and Ben hunched down staring at a game.

I sat with Lauren but she was looking dreamy and glazed and was no company, so I lurched back up to the front seat.

"Eddie, I have some tour managery questions for you," I began, sitting right behind Deadwood. Mike grimaced at me and plugged himself into his i-pod. I had a whole bunch of questions, actually, and I was ready to fire them.

"Yes Bella?" Edward asked politely, eyes on the road.

Now, alcohol blurs the edges. It softens them. With no alcohol in my system, my edges were perfectly honed, and lovely and sharp.

"Why don't we have any merch?" I said. One.

"Carlisle had t-shirts organized but there was a problem with the suppliers not getting them to the printers on time, and we had to source new stock. Carlisle's found a printer in the town we're due in tomorrow and I should be able to pick them up once we get in so they'll be ready for tomorrow night's show. We'll carry the extras with us, and we'll pay whoever is selling the Monsters' merch at every venue to sell ours as well."

Impressive. Behind the scenes planning, implementation and damage control. You get points, Deadwood, and so does dear old Dad.

"Nice work. Why aren't we recording shows so we can sell live cd's?" Two.

"Sam's doing a desk-recording every night and giving me a cd, but so far the budget hasn't stretched to a full multi-track set-up. Carlisle's organized one for the last show - and he's bringing in an engineer who specializes in live recordings. You'll be able to get it all mixed and made available on the website, and you can sell it on the next tour."

"You seem to have things in hand," I grudgingly admitted. He certainly did. I kept perving at those capable hands, at their grip on the wheel, at the finger porn right there in front of me, and the forearm, and fuck me, _bicep_ porn peeping out of his shirt sleeve. Oh God. Don't look at the thighs, the thigh porn is too much. Ask another question. Might as well load up on the voice porn. He had a fucking beautiful voice.

"What's happening to the takings from every night?" Three.

No hesitation. "We were offered a flat rate at the beginning of the tour. Carlisle then negotiated a bonus per night based on the number of people through the door. The Monsters' management and I get the nights' figures from the venue managers and I take our cut, in cash, which I leave in the hotel safe overnight. In the morning I'm at the nearest bank by ten a.m. to deposit it."

Shit, he was already up and taking care of business while we were all still asleep? I couldn't fault the guy. He had everything under control.

"Well, Gog, that crash course you did in how to tour manage has certainly earned its accreditation. You're completely on top of things, aren't you?"

"I hope so," he said, and he didn't look into the mirror at me, it was still eyes on the road.

"Are you taking a record of the set lists so when we submit a live performance return to the royalties agency we'll get properly paid?" Four.

"I am, yes. Erik gives me a copy every night and I'm keeping a spreadsheet."

"Well, fuck. Mr Efficiency. I am very, very pleased with your performance, may I just say?" I purred. "I have just one more question. Now that I'm not drinking any alcohol, we need to make an amendment to the rider. Don't you think you should ask me what I want?" Five.

We were stopped at a red light or I never would have done what I did. I leaned around the driver's head rest and I put my hands on his shoulders. That's all I intended to do. It wasn't my fucking fault that he was wearing a t-shirt that was loose at the neck, and that my right hand slipped inside the neck-band. It wasn't my fault that his skin felt the way it did, that it was so fucking smooth that my hand just slid a little into his t-shirt, and then slid a little more, and my fingertips touched chest hair, and that fucking warm, soft, breathing, velvet, silken, muscled, alive, male fucking skin. I felt his heartbeat, and I felt it speed up under my touch. My eyes flew to his in the rear view mirror, and his gaze shot up to mine, and that thing happened again. That fucking thing, where everything disappeared and he and I somehow went all cave person on one another and it was me woman, you man, stripped back to absolute basics. Primal. There's a new idea that the Neanderthals didn't die out, they interbred with homo sapiens, and there's a little bit of Neanderthal in all of us. I saw it in Edward and myself right then. Well, I don't know what I saw, apart from all veneer gone, and a sheer, unadorned physical awareness of one another in its place. My mouth opened in shock and his heart jolted wildly and I know my tongue came out to moisten my suddenly dry lips, and I saw him stare at my tongue.

Jesus Christ. All I wanted to do was jump over that seat, sit across him, and taste him. I wanted to fucking eat him. I wanted to _consume_ him.

"What _do_ you want, Bella?" he asked me quietly.

His hand came up to take my wrist, and stop my hand, which was slipping further in to his shirt. Fuck, my middle finger must have been just about at his nipple. He didn't shove me away though. We sat suspended and staring until a horn blasted rudely behind us, and we both looked up through the windscreen to see the lights had changed to green.

I whipped my hand out from his shirt, and Mike came back to life with the sound of the horn, which was joined by a few more, and he said, "Jesus, Bella you freakhag, don't you know you should fucking sit down in a vehicle? What are you doing over Edward's shoulder anyway? Are you trying to check the odometer or something? You're fucking weird."

"Bite yourself," I mumbled, and sank back into the seat next to Ben. He had earbuds in and I grabbed one and stuck it in my own ear. He didn't care - he and I got along fine. I listened to his game sounds as he played, and I like a lot of the game music. I concentrated on it so I didn't have to let my brain wander to what the holy-hecking fuck was happening between me and my tour manager.

We glided to a stop in the car park in the basement of the hotel and we all filed obediently out, Deadwood waiting wordlessly next to the van. I briefly thought about making up some excuse to keep him there - "Oh, Edward, I dropped my contact lens, could you help me?" and then I thought never mind excuses - why don't I just throw him against the side and have him, somehow? Anyhow?

But Lauren was fussing about in the back seat and not coming out, and I went to see what the hold-up was, and my girl was crying. She was hiding in there, fucking crying.

I prioritized, quickly.

"Come on, Lollipop, darling, come with me. I'll kiss you better," I promised her, and I turned to Edward. "Er, women's business," I explained.

He looked alarmed and stepped back while I put my arm around Lauren to help her clamber out. I was murmuring comforting things like, "Sshh, baby, it's okay," as I took her upstairs, poor little sobbing thing. Whatever her problem was, surely it could be fixed with the contents of the mini-bar. Mini-bars fix everything, don't they?

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That's true about mini-bars.

Except the next morning, when you get the bill.


	11. Chapter 11

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Eleven

After I searched out the bottle of wine I still had from the other night and knocked the top the hell off it, I poured my quivering girl Lollipop a glass full.

"So what's up?" I asked her.

It turned out Lauren had found her problems looming large quicker than she expected.

"Well, you know I'm talking to Tyler every night and we're just kind of hanging out a bit? I hadn't mentioned James," she sniffed.

"You hadn't mentioned you live with someone who fucks your lights out five nights a week when you're not on tour? And afternoons on the weekends?" I said kindly, wine in hand, or rather in mouth, and patting her knee.

"I was hiding from it. I thought if I mentioned it, it would come between us making friends with one another, and I love talking to him so much, I didn't want him to be giving me that "you belong to somebody else" vibe and backing off, you know? I wasn't exactly lying, I just wanted, oh God, I don't know - I _was_ lying, wasn't I?" she mumbled feebly.

"Lying by omission isn't technically lying. What it _is_ is not telling the whole truth, which isn't quite the same thing, although it's still dishonest. However, that's semantics. So what happened tonight? You were fine when we left the venue," I said.

She finished the wine in one gulp, and poured herself another. It was going down fast. Fuck, mini-bars are expensive, and our next day's pds would take a serious hit if we got into the tiny little g and t's. And Gog would know I'd been drinking, because he'd find out from the desk clerk when he checked us out, unless I blamed the whole lot on Lozzie. But wait a minute - maybe he'd say I had to share his room since I was so badly behaved? Jesus, to share his room I'd empty every little bottle and even eat one of those nasty packets of pretzels, and I fucking hate pretzels.

"Yes, things were fine, and then halfway to back here Tyler texted me. He asked straight out if I had a boyfriend."

"Oh. That's direct. Why didn't he ask you in person?"

"I don't know."

We sat there. Me, Lola, and the pretzels. Fuck, I needed to concentrate on her now and not worry so much about the barsnacks.

"Okay, before you tell me what you said, let's play a little game. I ask you a difficult question and you rip your guts out answering me," I started, and she took a deep breath and nodded.

"And, baby, I'm not going to judge," I added. "Do you love James?"

Lauren bit her lip and a fresh tear fell. "Yes," she admitted.

"Is he the best fuck you've ever had?"

She turned bright red. "Well, no, but... he's sweet and considerate and he makes me feel good."

"Do you see your first child being named James junior?"

"Oh, Bella. _I don't know_. I care about him and it's comfortable and I'd hate to hurt him, and I don't know whether that's forever sort of love, or if it's loyalty and affection. But surely I couldn't feel this way about someone else if I was truly in love?" she asked.

I finished my wine and refilled my tumbler. There are supposed to be seven and a half standard drinks in a wine bottle, but that's really overstating it. If you drink the way we prefer to, a bottle only holds four glasses.

"Lauren, it looks to me like you've got someone who loves and wants you, and someone who likes and wants you. You could stay with James and be secure; you could give him the flick and have wild monkey sex with Tyler, or you could give them both the flick and have some Lauren time. I can't tell you what to do, but do you know, I think I'd rather have the wild monkey sex with a guy I might not have something ongoing with than be made love to by someone when I'm not sure of my feelings about him - I just know that they've faded and I can't bear to tell him."

She sighed.

"What did you reply to Tyler, anyway? And why the tears?" I pressed.

"I said yes. He texted back and asked if it was serious. I was wondering what to say when a message came through from James saying how much he misses me and can't wait for me to be back there with him, and I just got overwhelmed. I'm not looking forward to going home."

"I think you've got some sort of answer for yourself right there," I said. I am such a sage. The wine was all gone, and my glance kept stealing to those tiny vodka bottles. I am also such a lush, although I will never give myself a gargantuan vomitous hangover ever again. On the day of a show.

Lauren didn't look any happier but she said, "Bells, I've got some chablis in my bag," and I kissed her. I was feeling a bit like a bad friend because I had been fondling Gog's chest while poor Lolita was having a crisis.

We put the tv on to some channel with music videos and lay back on the twin beds. Two halves of two bottles of wine hardly equated to anything, and I wouldn't be any the worse for wear in the morning, and anyway, tomorrow was a day off. I resolved to spoil Lauren and show her a boyfree good time.

"What's on the agenda for the morning?" I asked her lazily. "Has anyone said?"

"Ron said something about the guys planning golf," she replied.

"Golf? You are fucking shitting with me! Of all the boring fucking things in the world they want to play _golf_? I vote laser skirmish!" I exclaimed.

"Apparently our lot and the crew all want to do nine holes," she said, and then giggled at herself. I fucking guffawed.

"So, did you end up replying to Ty-ty? About the serious factor?" I asked.

"No."

"Well, Jesus, girl, you're fucking answering it by not answering, aren't you? If you felt your future was with James you would have said so without hesitating. You'd better send Tyler something. Tell him you want to see his cock before you decide," I said helpfully. Wine is so relaxing.

"I'm going to tell him it's complicated, and leave it at that for tonight," she decided. "Anyway, Bella, whose cock do _you_ want?"

"Gog's. No question," I said emphatically. "And maybe Jasper's. No, I want to kiss Jasper and fuck Gog. _Damn_. I'd have either of them, but not both. Not at the same time, anyway. Oh, damnit, let's go gay, Lolly. We'll do the scissor-sister thing all night long and not worry about any of these fucking boys. It's too hard."

Lauren sniggered. "You said _hard_," she said.

The two of us were no better off as far as our love lives were concerned when we went to sleep, but at least we had the sisterhood.

And Christ, did we need the sisterhood the next day. The moron males really were going to play golf. It's not even exercise, it's fucking time-wasting on an epic scale, but because we all had to check out of the stupid fucking hotel, Lauren and I couldn't just lie around and give ourselves facemasks and pedicures all day. That's a fuck of a lot more fun than golf.

We girls grumbled and complained, but Deadwood drove us all to the waste-of-perfectly-good-land that was the golf course, and I figured at least we could get some fun in racing golf carts. The course was called The Pines and I told everyone I was going to climb up and re-arrange the letters on the sign so that it said The Penis, because of course I like anagrams, and Deadwood snorted but he avoided catching my eye, the great wuss.

Lauren and I got in a bit of slalom eventing in the carts, which have a maximum speed of tortoise, and it was quite fun playing sheepdog and trying to round the boys up, despite all the abuse they hurled at us. We kept off the fairways and everything, being very rule-abiding, but a boring and stuffy official turned up and told us to desist or we would have to leave. Hell, he wanted us to leave anyway. I don't know what it is about me and little fucking Hitlers in uniforms who all want me to stop whatever I'm doing.

Deadwood had already handed out pd's for the day, and I'd signed for mine with hugs and kisses underneath, which had made him frown and mutter, "The band could get audited, Bella. These could be seen by somebody at the tax department." Like I gave a damn. The chicks were cashed up and we decided to go into town.

On the way I texted Edward and told him so that he couldn't go off his head at me because I knew I'd cop more of a telling off than Mike had last night if Edward didn't know where I was. It was unfair, sexist, and probably personal but it was true. Lauren and I went off and treated ourselves to the Beauty thing - I had my eyebrows waxed and she got a french manicure, and then we went to a movie, and turned our phones off.

As soon as we got out of the cinema and I flicked my phone back on, there were fifty million messages from an irate Deadwood. Christ, he was an old woman.

I called him and held the phone away from my ear while he raved at me and as soon as I could get a word in I said we were only a suburb away and we'd be back any second, and anyway, I'd told him where we were. Just to push my luck, I suggested to Lauren that we pop into a department store we passed that had sale signs up. We wouldn't be eating again that day because we spent all our money, but boy, we got some lovely underwear. We often bought the same stuff, although this time we didn't. I got a set of boyshorts with days of the week on them, just to save confusion, and Lauren got a bra and panties matching set in snakeskin-print satin.

"Are you trying to entice an anaconda?" I teased her. "Have you been withholding information about Tyler?" and she smirked at me.

The boys were waiting for us, all ready to go by the time we rocked up at The Penis, Edward looking vaguely irritated. How were we to know they'd play so fucking fast?

We had another town to drive to, and I sat in the front with Gog again.

"So, you boys all out on the green together today. I know a little bit about golf. You have_ wood_, right? And _iron_?" I asked, just being friendly.

"Both, yes," he answered.

"I imagine it's difficult getting much practise in, when you don't have anything suitable to practise with. How was your grip?"

"Fine."

"Could you give me a ball-by-ball description of the game?"

He drew a deep breath. "No."

"Did you get in any good strokes?" I continued.

He stopped responding.

"Okay, I'll give you a blow-by-blow account of the movie," I offered, which was really very nice of me, but Deadwood replied, "No, I need to pay attention to the Satnav. If you talk I won't be able to hear it."

"Suit yourself, Grumbles," I answered.

We hit the next town, and us girls had no money for dinner. Deadwood gave us some out of the float, and it was another quiet night. This time we did do the facemasks - cucumber and avocado, and Lauren had snuck some champagne. It was a pleasant evening for the two of us, and we gossiped and watched arthouse films on cable and deconstructed them and we contemplated going to find the boys and hang with them for a bit, but we had green faces, and Mike never lost an opportunity to call me a fucking witch, so we stayed put.

Nights off are all very well, and it's okay I guess to have the opportunity to calm down, but after four shows in a row I was pretty pumped and I couldn't wait to get back on stage the next night. We were all pumped, we were all excited, we knew we were playing well because a show is worth half a dozen rehearsals, and add to that the state of fucking sexual unrest I was living in - it's a recipe for success.

The next show was our best yet. Fuck yeah. When the FLM's came on I went down to the back of the room which was the only place there was space to stand without being jammed in like sardines on a Japanese commuter train, and watched the Sexinator grin and grind his way through one hour fifteen of pure sex juice. He was getting sweaty all to hell with his wild dirty hair and flushed face looking like he'd just had a good long fuck. Mike was with me, nodding and stamping and cheering, and the Monsters were just so awesome we all rode on their wave with them.

I was nearly creaming my new panties when Jasper came into the band room. I stood up and gawped at him like a stupid fangirl and he laughed at me, pulling me close and kissing me on the cheek yet again with his perspiration-drenched mouth. It was getting to be a habit of his.

"Is there still an embargo on the bourbon, baby?" he asked, and when I nodded dumbly he got us both OJ's. "Solidarity," he winked, chinking glasses with me. His shirt was soaked and sticking to him, and turning away, he peeled it off, picking up a towel and wiping himself down as he talked with his bandmates about the set they'd just performed. We conducted post-mortems of shows too, and I guess probably all bands do it. You talk about what went well and what didn't, and you point fingers at whoever made mistakes. It keeps us sharp. I attract a lot of finger-pointing, but shit, that's because I'm the one trying to push the envelope all the fucking time and not be some safe little piss-ass girly band. I want to rule the fucking world, not just the playground.

Jasper turned back around after the towel business, and really, he wasn't dried of at all. He was glistening. And then - _what the fuck?_ How did I miss this the other day? Maybe his jeans were lower tonight, but my eyes were drawn to just above the waistband, which was really a hipband, because those jeans were _low._ Holy-father-bless-me-for-I-am-having-sinful-thoughts. He didn't have a happy trail - _did he shave there? Would he let me watch?_ - but Jesus Christ, Bella, stop staring. He had a tattoo. Just to the inside of his pelvic bone there, on his belly. It said _I'm lost_ in a beautiful cursive script. Well, I could have a look around down there and see if I could find you, I thought. I tore my gaze away with difficulty and hoped nobody had noticed I'd had my eyes shamelessly glued to the lower front of the Sexinator's abdomen.

Luckily, no-one was looking at me, and luckily, Gog wasn't in the room. Then I glanced at the mirror, and found someone was looking at me after all, and it was Jasper Whitlock.

Evacuate! I fled, this time bumping into Mike, who swore liberally at me, and I went and hid in the ladies restroom, fixing my lipstick with trembling hands. Within minutes Deadwood knocked on the door calling for me, asking if I was all right.

"Perfectly, thank you," I answered, "I'll be out forthwith."

"Good, because we're leaving," his voice answered flatly. My fucking sanity was leaving, that was for sure. I was a bit scared it had a one-way ticket.

I went out and waited by the van, hoping someone would perform an idiot-check in the room and find my bag and bring it, and sure enough, Edward I'm On Top turned up with it slung over his shoulder.

"A man-bag... nice," I remarked to him and I sat next to Ron, starting to talk loudly.

"Where's the party tonight? Whose room? Lauren and I miss you boys. I haven't annoyed anyone for days, have I? I can't remember how to do it. I'm going to come and treat your beds like trampolines," and I went on and on. How many more shows did we have? How much more of Gog and Jasper did I have to take? How much more fucking _unrelieved_ horniness?

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Thank you for reading. Thank you to those who review.


	12. Chapter 12

These fictitious characters belong in their complete entirety to Stephenie Meyer but I have modeled their behavior on situations that have never happened and most likely never will.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

tra la la: Chapter Twelve!

Lauren and I got changed as soon as we were back at the hotel - Jasper hadn't been the only sweaty one. After about half an hour, and french-braiding each other's hair, and a quick handstand competition against the wall in our room which disarrayed our braids nicely, we went along to the room Ben and Gog were sharing. All the boys were swapping their room-sharing partners regularly - maybe because of the smells, I don't know. Maybe they were afraid enforced proximity would make gay homosexuals of them.

I was just about to whack on the door and yell, "Open up, it's the police!" as I liked to do, when I heard music coming from in there.

Well, I would expect music, to be honest. We're a fucking band, after all. But someone was playing guitar and it wasn't one of my sausage-fingered cronies. Someone was playing a hundred-year-old song I've always loved called Oblivious, by Aztec Camera, with finesse.

"Can you hear that?" I said to Lauren, and she nodded.

"Wrong room," she shrugged. "Check the number."

Neither of us had a copy of our itinerary on hand because we never did, because we always left it up to the TM. We stood there listening for a bit, wondering how to find our boys. I was starting not to care actually, because the strains coming through the door were so melodious I was prepared to linger and listen as long as they kept going, when I heard Mike's unmistakeable tones, trying to sing.

"Well, that's our boys all right - but how did they smuggle in Roddy Frame and a dying turkey?" Lauren asked.

I pounded on the door, and it was opened by Ron.

"Hello, it's the Amazon women from the moon," he announced, standing back so we could pass him.

Gog and Ben were sitting on the floor cross-legged facing each other, each with an acoustic guitar. Mike was on one of the beds, beer in hand. Gog - wait a minute - Gog?

Those long, long fingers were wrapped gracefully around the guitar's neck and he was pulling chords I didn't even know the name of but I knew they weren't just letters like A and B, they had fancy, clever, extra notes added. For fuck's sake!

He acknowledged us with a nod, but he kept playing, and Ben was picking lines out here and there, adding embellishments, and when the fuck did it happen that our tour manager was some sort of musical wizard? His left hand had a reach of - how many fucking frets was that? And his right hand kept metronomic time with the strumming. Fuck me, I had thought the hand porn was bad when he was driving. Now that I could see what else each of those hands could do with dexterity and rhythm I thought I might just fucking fall over. Things were getting desperately, desperately bad.

I went and sat on the bed next to Mike, making sure I gave him a good elbow jostle, and got ready to be disruptive. What else can a girl do?

The song finished and I couldn't even look at Gog, I was still so stunned. And pissed off. And turned on. Into the silence Ron, who was normally quiet but when he came up with anything it was usually pretty good, said, "Well, Bella, just what is that emblazoned across your magnificent frontage tonight?"

Everyone stared at my tits. My whole band. And Gog. It was just a tatty old band shirt, and it said Cute Is What We Aim For, and Ron leered theatrically and said, "Well, they look pretty cute to me," which was uncharacteristic of him. The boys generally avoided any sexual remarks about Lauren or me, wisely. They didn't want to get slapped.

"You filthy bunch of lechers!" I yelled, and that broke the spell. Everyone started talking, and Lauren sat down with Ron, who pulled out his miniature backgammon set like the dork he is, and Mike started up some dicky conversation with Ben about art rock and I went and got the guitar from Ben and sat with Deadwood.

"You play guitar?" Deadwood asked with surprise.

"Better than you," I retorted, although I didn't. "I'll start something and you follow. Let's jam, buddy boy."

I can't play to save my ass, really, and I was so far below his level that I couldn't see the point of bothering. I just started bashing randomly on the thing and I told him it was avant-garde when he looked questioningly at me.

"Can't you keep up?" I asked. Luckily, Sam and Erik walked in with beers, and Deadwood was distracted. Of course _I_ couldn't have a beer in case it brought on the end of the fucking world.

"Hey, Eddie, play something we all know!" Ben called out a moment later, and all the boys seemed relaxed and easy and jokey with one another, while Deadwood shrugged and strummed a couple of chords and said, "Beatles?"

I love the Beatles. They're probably my favorite band, along with about twenty others.

Edward started singing "Norwegian Wood," and even though my regular job is to sing the top line, I love harmonizing. I sang with him, and above him, finding the notes easily. The others sang along too, Mike with his nasal twang that is worse than an attack of flying bats, and Ron and Ben with their tenors that are quite nice. Sam is a baritone and every chance I get I make him sing to me so I can melt a little, and Erik kind of squeaks, while Lauren has the same range as me. Altogether we sounded like one of those fucking community choirs for the socially disadvantaged, some of us in tune and some not.

Deadwood let us go for about half an hour before he put a stop to it, saying he didn't want a call from reception saying there'd been complaints. I eyed Mike pointedly because he was the main offender, and he gave me the finger, and I did it back to him.

Then everyone pretty much chilled out, and I went and sat with Sam, who was newly married with a baby. He had photos of his little girl, and most days I would rather be injected with rancid custard than look at somebody's baby, but little Emma was pretty cute. We all moved around talking to one another, and Ben, Lauren and Deadwood were debating whether Janeway was better than Picard when I interrupted with the opinion was that Reynolds was better than both of then, of fucking course, because he was the only one I would willingly sleep with. Everyone agreed, even Deadwood.

"Have you come out to Carlisle and Esme yet, Eduardino?" I snorted, and he snorted back, "No, I've told them I like Zoe." I had to side with him on that one, because anybody who is clinically alive would have to think that Zoe is hot, and somehow I ended up next to him on one of the beds, jabbering away about pop culture and rubbish.

When Carlisle was on tour with us, it was sort of like we were on school excursion with our favorite teacher. Things were friendly, and we all got along, apart from the inevitable little spats caused by too much time in one anothers' company and by me and Mike being fuckwits. But during these hotel room get-togethers Carlisle was very much a presiding authority. With Deadwood, the vibe was completely different. Lauren and I had been tucked away by ourselves for a few days, and now here in the boys' room I felt the new camaraderie amongst them, and saw the respect and genuine liking they had for Edward. They treated him as one of us instead of one slightly apart from us, which was how we all felt about Carlisle.

I realized too that I was the only band member who kept trying to make Edward prove himself, the only one who gave him a hard time. The boys accepted him and liked him, and I was the spaniel in the works. Fucking Snarkella. He was calm and happy tonight, instead of exhibiting the tenseness I usually felt emanating from him. Well, it was a night off, he wasn't running around like a headless chicken, organizing everyone and everything. I also wondered if it was anything to do with me putting the bitch away in a box for five minutes.

"Hey, Gog, give us a beer," I said, half-heartedly, punching him on the arm.

"Hey, Bella, no," he answered, although he didn't give me a punch back. "What does Gog mean?"

"You really have to ask?" I grinned at him. "Goblin of Grumpytown."

He raised an eyebrow, giving me a delicious, tingle-inducing smile.

"Is that so? Well then, I have to declare it's time all good little cygnets were tucked up in bed. This is a great opportunity for an early night. There's another four-date stint starting tomorrow, folks," he said, turning and addressing everyone.

I was sorry I'd spoken. Nothing spectacular had happened, we'd just all had a big old bonding session, had the fun times singalong, and we were having a great night. It was our best night so far, really, even though we hadn't done a show, and it was the most relaxed I'd ever seen Gog. He was laughing a lot, and he never laughed.

I said good night reluctantly, and Lauren and I went back to our room.

Once we were in bed she musingly, "Bells, I've been thinking about something you said. About the wild, monkey sex."

"Yeah?" I asked, picturing, god help me, Gog's orang-utan colored fucking hair, wild with my fingers tugging on it.

"Well, Bella, it's out there, isn't it? I don't know what the figures are, but say six hundred people come to a show, and say half of them are male. Then say half of those males are single, and half again don't dribble, or have scabies - how many do you reckon would want to fuck a girl rockstar? Most of them?"

"What are you getting at?" I said.

"I've got a boyfriend, Bells, and I've had a boyfriend since I've been in the band. But you haven't. I've never, ever known you to take a fan home from a show. If you want the wild, monkey sex, why aren't you having it? There's plenty of opportunity."

"Um," I said, rolling over to face her, even though it was dark and I couldn't see her too well. "It's the whole _fan_ thing. You know what it's like talking to people after shows when they're all fawning and gushing. It's so unequal. You're starting off on an uneven footing. They think they already know you, because they've seen you up there, and they've seen pictures of you and read interviews. It's fucking creepy, actually. They put you on a pedestal and it's some sort of a score for them to tell their friends about, and it's just not _normal_. God, come on, Lauren. Don't tell me you could ever sleep with a fan?"

"No, I couldn't," she agreed. "Only someone who does the same thing I do, or who understands. When guys come up saying how much they like our music, they don't know it's their own death knell."

I was quiet. This was why I was single, frustrated, miserable and horny. I wouldn't ever fuck a fan, and fans and fellow musicians were the only men I met, and musicians were mostly freaked out weirdos with worse fucking problems than I had. Get thee to a nunnery, Bellavere. Thou willst not have sex other than by thine own hand because thou's options are so fucking limitedeth. Thou is doomed to be unsexed unless thou fuckethes the Sexinator or Gog, and thou will surely come unstucketh if thou does thateth.

And quite honestly, I couldn't even have sex with my own fucking hand when I was sharing a room, because, duh, I couldn't. Sleep, take me now. Please.

And the next day, it was back into the van, drive for fucking hours, plug in and tune out, plug out and play stupid word games, change who you're sitting next to so you don't throw up on them because of the unrelenting tedium, and God I fucking hated touring! All my band fucking chewed too loudly and I had to sit next to them in diners and hear it. Fucking Ron and Ben were dead from the fucking neck up with how utterly boring they were - immersed in technology and incapable of engaging in conversation. What a pair of brainless robots! And Mike was just revolting. And then on some lonely zillion mile stretch of the highway to hell Deadwood tuned the radio to some random country music station and wouldn't change it. My brain went MIA and my foot went to sleep and I got a cramp in my calf and I just wanted to fucking _stand up_ but Deadwood said we couldn't stop. I hated everyone. After the country music Deadwood found some station playing some fucking BBC world news broadcast and he got all serious about fucking international politics and the rest of the guys got involved in what became a heated discussion. Fuck! Who gives a shit you could now buy tourist flights to the moon? Who fucking cares the majority of people in the western world think the official language of Brazil is Brazilian?

"Fucking keep it down, I'm trying to contemplate writing my memoirs back here!" I yelled, but nobody took any notice.

Actually, my period was due, and pms had come on like a ton of bricks. Fuck, my nerves were in shreds, and my breasts really, really _hurt_.

Another town, another gig. Please let there be an Indian restaurant, or Chinese, or Italian, so that I don't have to eat another burrito. Please let me set up a direct feed of bourbon and cola through my microphone so I could drink without Deadwood finding out and telling me off until it was too late. Please let me start bleeding so the swelling in my belly would go down and I could do up the top button on my jeans. Please let me the fuck off this fucking carousel!

We got to our next destination eventually and I snarled my way through an interview with the local music press, which wasn't very gracious of me, but fuck, I'm an ordinary person having a bad day. Why should I want to discuss my fucking lyrics and talk about my inspiration? _Leave me alone!_ But no. They took my photo and I scowled like a banshee.

Then hotel check in. Sound check. Dinner. Shower. Get dressed. Show.

Sometimes when I feel terrible I have a good show, and it turns my mood all around. Sometimes it doesn't work that way. Tonight I scraped my hair brutally back from my face, got Lolly to zip me into a screamingly red, tight, short dress and deliberately tore my tights so that they laddered. I wore my platform boots again, and used my crimson lip pencil as eyeliner, and my black eyeliner to color my lips. I went out there and fucking screeched.

Lauren knew how I felt because she felt it too. She snarled behind the keyboard like a lithe blonde panther, teeth bared and claws unsheathed, and the boys stayed well away from the both of us. I had two small bottles of juice on stage with me, and Lolly had poured a shot of vodka into each of them in the spirit of bitchblood and anarchy because performing stone cold sober is just fucking out of line, if you ask me. I was prepared to get into a fight with Deadwood - fuck, I'd get into a fucking fight with everyone on earth, and I wanted another goddamned drink, but it wasn't like I could leap offstage in the middle of the set and get one.

I launched into every song like I was leading an army to war, and we did our forty minutes' worth, and I saw Jasper out the front watching us with his undiluted appreciation. Edward was at side of stage, with his measured, fucking critical eye. God, what did it take to please that fucking guy?

The audience response was huge and despite my self-absorption I could see we'd done well, and I stood there, being an asshat, railing at the crowd and talking up the FLM's as my band filed offstage behind me.

I turned to follow them, and the lights were down. Then I don't know quite what happened, but a combination of not being able to see, and not being able to walk, and not being able to negotiate three simple stairs to get from the stage to floor level led to me falling over like a total fucking loser klutz.

The guys were already ahead of me and didn't notice. My fucking crew were up on stage getting the guitars and rolling up the cables and they didn't notice either.

I was lifted to my feet by Deadwood.

"Christ, Bella, you're an accident on legs, aren't you?" he said in a rough voice.

"Thanks for fucking caring! I fucking hate you, too!" I grimaced, because my ankle hurt, and I had to clutch onto him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"No, my prosthetic foot has become partially detached and I need to tighten the screws before it falls off. Otherwise I'd be _gliding_," I snapped at him, and he held me by the waist and started walking me back to the band room.

"You have a prosthetic foot?" he said.

"Yes, it comes all the way off and goes in my mouth. Haven't I shown you?" I answered, but I staggered, because my ankle really did hurt. Gog's arm tightened and his body turned towards me as he brought his other arm up. I clutched his bicep. Oh. Fuck. It was perfectly formed, and bulged slightly. I clutched the other one, too, to steady myself.

"Shit, you need your own designated paramedic, I don't know why Carlisle didn't warn me. Let's get you somewhere you can sit down and we'll see what the damage is," he said, and half-carried me right past the band room door.

"They've only got folding chairs in there," he muttered, and found another room, just as he had the night I was hungover. There was a sofa and he sat me down on it.

"Okay, where's the pain?" he asked, and I moaned feebly about my ankle, which was now throbbing. He sat next to me and pulled my foot up onto his lap, though my dress was so tight I had to ease it up to my hips. Ignoring that fact, he unlaced my boot and carefully pulled it off. My poor ankle already looked swollen through my pantyhose and he probed it gently.

"Okay, hopefully it's a sprain and not a break, but you need an icepack, and you need to sit with this raised for as long as possible," he said, turning to me.

"Yes, Dr Cullen," I answered meekly. Some medicinal alcohol would sure have helped with the agony, but his tenderness was a bit of a pain reliever in itself. Both his hands were still around my lower leg, I wasn't quite sure if he realized it. "Where did you get your medical degree?"

"The university of being an accident-prone child," he said. "I'll be back in a minute."

His estimation of a minute was a bit out, but he was back soon with what must have been the venue's first aid kit. He had an ice pack which he told me to hold on to where the pain was for fifteen minutes.

"You'll be all right here, won't you? I have to check on a few things. I'll come back," he said, and left me there. Fucking thanks, Deadwood, for leaving me in another boring, nondescript office, although it had old style venetian blinds which were half open to admit some light, and outside there was garish orange lighting from the parking lot. It was actually kind of noir in there. I was sideways on the sofa with my feet up on the cushions, holding this stupid ice pack that was freezing my fucking hand off at the same time as providing no relief to my foot. There was a non-specific low ache in my belly, my breasts felt swollen, and my emotions were all over the place. Normally when I was premenstrual, if I was on my own, I would have a nice lie down and a joint, and quite honestly, I usually found that an orgasm helped matters considerably. Fat fucking chance of that, though, with no privacy to be had anywhere, and Deadwood due back any moment. It wasn't like _he_ was going to help me out in that department either.

By the time he got back, I was in a bit of a state.

"How are you doing?" he asked, and sat next to me on the sofa. "I've got you a bandage. Can you get your pantyhose off? I'll wrap your foot, and you need to sit with it elevated above the level of your heart. And I've got some painkillers."

"If I put my weight on my foot I'll fall over," I told him.

"Oh," he said, and looked me in the eye. "You'll have to take your pantyhose off without standing up."

"You'll have to help," I said.

"Oh," he said, again, sitting perfectly still.

"Well?" I demanded.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Okay," he said, and I hitched my hips up, and it was really fucking awkward, because I couldn't take any weight on my foot. I was kind of leaning on my elbows, tipping over to one side, and I had to pull my dress right up to peel my tights down but I couldn't really use my hands because I needed them to lift my ass up off the cushions. He was trying to help, and trying not to look, but his hands were on me and I was so fucking aware of him, touching the bare skin of my hips and then my thighs as I was trying to pull my dress back down over my ass. It was embarrassing and the most ungainly removal of tights ever performed by two people. It was also extremely arousing. Our hands were tangling over my legs until I just lay back and let him take over, and he finished the job from about my knees down, easing the 40-denier nylon over my feet after he unlaced my other boot.

Then with a great show of concentration he bandaged my sore ankle and secured the whole thing with one of those little clips, and slowly turned back to me.

"Put your foot up here on the arm of the sofa and I'll get you a cushion for your head, and you can rest here until it's time to go. Shall I get Lauren to keep you company?" he asked.

"Can't you stay with me?" I said.

"I've got things I need to do but I can stay a little while," he said, and the light was coming in to the room in stark, horizontal bars, casting stripes on his face. He looked concerned, mildly uncomfortable, and he was sitting with his thigh touching my hip.

"You have a pretty good bedside manner, Dr Cullen," I mumbled. "Your hands are a bit cold, though."

"Sorry," he said. He seemed disinclined to talk.

We just sat there, and I drank him in, while he stared away from me. He was fucking gorgeous anyway, but in this light he was spectacular. I couldn't fucking believe it - the blades of his cheekbones high and sharp with shadowed hollows beneath them, and the lines of his jaw geometric in their precision. His lashes were absurdly thick and his eyes were slightly narrow and a little uneven, their creases being asymmetrical. The edges of his mouth didn't have the sort of definition Jasper's did, but his lips were full and looked soft, and right now they were sightly open.

He turned his head towards me and caught me, and he simply stared back, unguarded. I couldn't read his expression, but as I watched, spellbound, his gaze moved over my cheeks and jaw and mouth and back to my eyes. It was so sensuous a perusal I almost fucking felt it.

I reached one hand to the back of his neck and held him lightly, with no pressure.

"Edward," I breathed, and he gave the tiniest frown, but didn't pull away.

Everything seemed to center - my wayward, unfocused emotions, my hazy, premenstrual feeling that the dam was about to burst, my general frustration, my high from performing, the stress from my sprained ankle, and the out-of-control attraction I felt toward him.

"Will you kiss me?" I whispered.

Frowning harder, he shook his head, but I didn't get the impression he was shaking it at me. More like himself.

I moved my fingers in his hair, which I'd wanted to do for weeks, feeling its silkiness and finding his scalp. My other hand moved up there, too. He still didn't pull away, and he still stared.

"Bella, I can't," he whispered back, sounding strained. "_We_ can't."

But even as he said it he leaned towards me, a frown-line appearing between his brows giving him an expression that almost looked like pain, and his eyes gleaming darkly before they closed.

.

.

.

I don't know how the word count for this chapter sneaked up over 4000 because they're usually hovering around the 2500 - 3000 mark. Beats me.

Would anybody be interested in an Epov? I might see if I can muster something...

I've made a few changes since I posted this last night because I had had some le wine then and I was a bit le drunk. Totes sober now, though, yes ma'am.


	13. Chapter 13

Anything recognizable owned by SM. That wouldn't be much.

All care taken and no responsibility. No hang on, I mean no care taken and all responsibility.

The long-awaited chapter thirteen of

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

It was a rip-off. The biggest fucking disappointment of all time. I'd waited - how long? His lips barely touched mine, and he was pulling back, his fingers at my wrists to loosen my hold on him.

But I wasn't letting go. Oh no. I hadn't come this far for a brush-off. I resisted him, and he actually tightened his grip and took my hands - he pulled them, in a blatant display of superior strength. Fuck, it was hot. I knew he was really strong because I'd seen him lifting amps like they were boxes of candy, and he could have wrenched my hands from him if he'd chosen to, but his grip was just enough to show me his mastery of the situation without forcing me. Oh god, his strength and his self-control was sexy. He wanted to move my hands away from his head and he was letting me know that he could.

I kept resisting though, and I opened my eyes to glower at him, only to find him regarding me dazedly. Fucking Edward Cullen for once didn't look entirely in control. I leaned right in and let him have it, my mouth on his, and he was completely still, though I felt the quickened breaths puffing from his nostrils onto my cheek. He wasn't unaffected. He wasn't actually resisting me either so I licked into his mouth, seeking a response, asking his tongue to come out and play. I asked politely, I wasn't being too pushy, I was being really nice, I thought, considering what he'd been putting me through. His hands still held my wrists in a death grip, and my heart was hammering until I felt like it was making my whole body vibrate, my beating pulse coming up my fucking throat and through my mouth into his, and finally he answered me. With a groan, low and quiet - he fucking _groaned_ - his lips moved. He kissed me, softly, yet hungrily, fingers letting go of my hands only to move into my hair and he tilted my head and kissed me more deeply.

It was fucking stunning. A current went through me, from his lips to my extremities and right through the middle, the core. It was a burn, heating me like lightning heats the surrounding air, with a return stroke like an electrical charge surging back to my mouth, and back to him. I know he felt it. No parts of us were touching other than his lips to mine, his hands at my head and mine on his shoulders, but I felt him shudder. The shudder was accompanied by another groan, and then he was pushing me back, pressing his chest against mine, heavy and solid. His tongue was at my teeth and then in my mouth. Oh God, he was kissing me like he wanted to fuck me. Hot and wet and hard and devouring.

Time disappeared as we both forgot where we were. He leaned back again, pulling me with him as if he thought we were in a bed and he wanted me on top, but the narrowness of the couch, and the problem of my ankle both proved to be obstacles. Despite my lust-induced stupor, I couldn't suppress a yelp while awkwardly trying to clamber onto him without breaking the mouth contact. I was magnetically glued to him, becoming heated and trying to get closer, but the yelp froze him.

"No," he said suddenly, and his hands had released me. The space he'd occupied beneath me was empty, and he had seemingly teleported to the door.

"I've got to go. I'm working. I have to do things." What the fuck? He was yards away, and too far for me to go after him. He stood there for a second, hair wild, eyes intense, hands dangling as though he didn't know what to do with them, and he shook his head.

"I'll send someone," he muttered, and he was gone.

Well, shit. I'd forgotten all about the pain in my ankle. What pain? Which ankle? There was only the pain of him not being right where I wanted him, of being left high and dry, chest heaving, blinking after the onslaught and not wanting to break the magic. I'd kissed Edward and he'd responded. He'd kissed me back, properly, like he meant it, like he wanted to, like he wanted me. He'd even taken over, and kissed me like he was the one calling the shots. I fucking knew it for sure now. Those weird moments when we'd looked at each other as if we'd gone primal - they were made more real and concrete by what had just happened. It was fucking official. Me plus him. Combustible.

I was feeling all loose and fuzzy inside and I flopped back against the arm of the couch reliving every single micro-tingle-buzz of the last few minutes, over and over.

I wasn't nearly far enough into the zillionth replay of my merry reverie when the door opened again, and Sam was there, shaking his head, and doing that tsk-tsk sound you do when a child falls over after you've told them to be careful.

"Bella, Edward said you're hurt. We've all been wondering where you were. He's asked me to help you. Do you need carrying?" he asked. He was a gentle giant, huge and formidable, but with the heart of a teddybear. He always kept a special eye out for me on tour, and we had a quiet, strong friendship. No matter who I managed to piss off throughout the course of a normal day, Sam never got annoyed with me.

"I think I twisted my ankle. I'm probably fine though," I said, swinging my legs to the ground and standing up. Well, for about half a second. Pain shot through my leg and I sank back onto the cushions.

"Come on, come to uncle," Sam said, frowning, and he scooped me up like I weighed no more than his little daughter Emma, while I tried to get my head together.

"Ah - my boots," I said, and he bent easily, not losing his balance for an instant so that I could scoop them off the floor.

The guys were out at the van, and Sam put me into the front passenger seat carefully, and did up the belt as though I was an invalid.

"What are you malingering about now?" Mike asked, although he did actually look a little concerned.

"I'm not fucking malingering - I have lost a limb - can't you see?" I retorted, and Edward got into the driver's seat. He gave me a quick stern glance that I interpreted as a warning to shut up, but God, it was a promise of things to come. He pulled out of the lot.

"Oh, Edward, before we leave - I left my pantyhose in that office! Could you go back and get them?" I asked him, and he turned to me. Mother fucking heck. The heat in his eyes could have started a forest fire.

"You seem to have a habit of leaving your clothes around in odd places," he murmured. "We can go back if you want - do you really need them?"

His voice was doing things to me. He was speaking quietly. I looked hungrily at his jaw and neck and mouth, then back up to his eyes. He was looking at my bare legs.

"No, I guess not," I said, burning. I really didn't care about a pair of fishnets when I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel. What would happen? Would he engineer some way of being alone with me? Would I engineer some way of being alone with him?

"Oh, Edward, could you come with me to the laundry room and fuck me up against a washing machine?"

Probably wouldn't go too well with the rest of the band. They might catch on.

"Oh, Edward, could you look in the janitor's closet for an extra pillow for me? I'll come too."

Discreet. They'd never know.

All the way back I was having thoughts of such volcanic lust I was surprised I didn't just erupt with profanity and lewdness. There was a fucking molten lava flow going on internally.

But then, back at the hotel, Edward appeared to find some urgent business that he had to attend to.

"Ben, could you help Bella up to her room?" he asked, not looking at me. "See you in the morning, everyone."

No.

No.

"Oh, and..." he said.

I nearly fell over in my eagerness to turn around. I nearly took Ben out, too.

"Swan Reach, you've got an instore appearance tomorrow. Unplugged, although there'll be a vocal PA, and we can DI the acoustic guitars. Sleep well, everyone."

The man was not a tease. He was not a coward. He was not someone who would fill my mouth with his tongue after the two of us had mindfucked each other for what amounted to weeks, and then calmly walk away. He was not someone who would lingeringly roll a pair of pantyhose from my waist, over my hips and down my thighs with tender, hot fingers and then _eat_ my lips, pulling my body over his and moaning, and then casually say goodnight.

Apparently, he was. If I could have reached him I'd have hit him.

Instead, I lurched about like a disabled person, trying to avoid taking any weight on my bad foot, and Ben said, "God, Bella, you're lame," like it was the most hilarious thing ever. Being a dickhead with no capacity for empathy, Mike snickered, while Lauren hovered along beside us clutching my bag. Deadwood simply disappeared.

"Bella, can't you just put one foot in front of the other?" Ben asked.

"You are singularly unfunny," I muttered at him, leaning heavily, and Lauren opened our door. Ben deposited me in there, guiding me to the bed where I collapsed in a heap.

I didn't know whether to say anything to Lolly or not about what had happened, or hadn't happened, not knowing whether it had been a development. Well, it had on my part. Previous little tremors of desire that I'd felt for Gog had become seismic, but I just didn't understand his reaction. And anyway - Lozzie's worries were kind of a shade more serious than mine.

"So what's the latest with Tyler?" I asked to distract myself while she bustled about poking through my bag, "helping" me by getting things out she thought I might need.

"Oh, we had a talk tonight and I've put a stop to anything," she said, too casually, handing me a hairbrush.

"Huh? Lolly, what do you mean?"

"I said I have a boyfriend and I love him and we're very happy." She sat on her bed looking anything but happy, making a liar of herself.

"And do you know what you're doing?" I asked, pointing at her with the hairbrush.

"Yes, Bella, I think I do," she mumbled, really miserably. "I have to break up with James, but I can't do it because of Tyler, it has to be because of me. Having Tyler around clouds the real issue. The real issue is that I've grown out of my relationship and I need to finish it in a caring and honest way, which wouldn't include hopping aboard the Tyler train and going for a hard ride."

Don't talk like that in front of me please Lollipop when I thought I might be hopping aboard the Gog train really soon.

"Well, okay. That's sorted then. No more eyefucking," I said. "You're just going to stand around side of stage gazing politely at Tyler like he's just any random guy, and not a totally hot bad-ass motherfucking come-to-bed ooh baby lickfest, are you?"

"Yes. Easy. Any how, what about the Jaxinator?"

God, we really do go off with our nicknames. Deadwood hadn't called my band the same name twice in a row. I kind of liked it. And I fucking loved Lauren's new name for Jaspinator-Sexinator.

"What about him?"

"Well, with you not being in the band room I think he missed you tonight."

As if on cue, my phone beeped, and I scrambled to it, wondering if it was Gog, asking me to meet him somewhere and keep kissing us both into oblivion. It wasn't.

_Heard you hurt your foot. You can lean on me, love J _the text said.

"Jesus, Lauren! Did you give Jasper my number?" I gasped.

"He asked me. I was pretty sure you wouldn't mind," she answered, grinning. "And since I'm not going to be getting my freak on any time soon, I thought I could do it vicariously through you. Think of me as your enabler. I'm not fussy whether it's Jax or Edward, by the way, but just get something happening, Bella. The tension is killing me."

"I don't care about your tension, you thoughtless bitch. What did you hand me my hairbrush for? So I can masturbate with it?"

She sniggered and threw a pillow at me, and I threw one back at her, and she started pulling all my clothes out of my bag and flinging them, and I pulled the blanket off my bed, making myself a cocoon to hide in.

"Sanctuary! Mercy! I beg you," I cried. "Would you treat a crippled woman so?" and I staggered over towards her bag to poke around and see what I could find to throw around.

"Alms for the outcast?" I asked hopefully, and she held up White Zinfandel. My little enabler had two bottles.

"You beauty. Let's get smashed. Bless the good ship Bellauren and all who sail in her," I toasted.

"That sounds rude. Are we offering threesomes now?" Lauren frowned. "We need to make ourselves more attractive or we won't get any takers. Let me put some make-up on you. You can put some on me at the same time."

Lauren's face made a lovely canvas, and I am quite the expressionist. Lauren favored a classicist approach, with Greek statues as her inspiration. A bottle of wine each later, we admired our handiwork, and damn, we looked good. She'd done a couple of years at art school before she was claimed by the rock and roll demon, and she could really draw. She'd used various soft shades of grey as a foundation on me and had smudged black lines here and there and I looked like a marble sculpture. I, on the other hand, made use of the full pallette and gave her hues of a thunderstorm at sunset, with pink and purple background, palm trees in silhouette, and lightning bolts. We admired ourselves in the bathroom and found the results very pleasing.

Thanks to the wine and fun, I drifted off to sleep with no pain at all in my ankle, and only a dull ache in my heart. Stupid fuckface Edward could go sit on a stick and Tyler and the Jaxinator could run off to fucking Mars with Mike and a hairy goat and me and my girl Lauren would drink wine and live lives of creativity and wonder and pay continuous homage to Dionysus. Part of my brain was trying to make allowances for Deadwood, thinking that since he and I had nowhere private to go, he was hardly going to start up some juicy groping and secksing in an office or a shared hotel room with my bandmates and crew looking on. That of course was why he hadn't asked to see me later. Nothing to do with the fact that he was a perplexing, hot and cold bastard whose behavior could neither be explained nor understood.

When I woke in the morning I heard Lolly snorting her head off and I turned grumpy eyes to her, only to see a panda-eyed purple ghoul clutching her guts laughing.

"Shall we go see the boys now?" she asked. "Confirm everything they've ever thought about us?"

"You mean convince them once and for all of the superiority of the female gender? Yes, maybe we should," I said, and pulled my foot out from under the blankets, giving it a few exploratory twists. It felt a lot better.

"Actually, I'm going to have a shower. I'll wash my hair, too, since it seems kind of sticky and icky. I may be some time," she announced, and grabbed her girly bag of goodies, heading for the bathroom.

I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes. She'd said the magic words - 'I may be some time'. We both had long hair, and drying it took quite a while. As long as I could hear the dryer, I would be on my own in the room, because of course the dryer was attached to the bathroom wall. That meant I could get in a quickie, and if I was quick enough, I could get in another quickie. Or I could go a bit slower. For Christ's sake, I needed this.

I pulled the blanket up and let my thoughts drift to the night before, in the office, and the way Gog had looked when I asked him to kiss me. I progressed to the way his lips had brushed mine so softly and lightly before he'd stopped it and moved his head away. He'd looked almost pained. Then I remembered the feel of his hands holding mine prisoner, captive, knowing his strength and knowing he could hurt me easily, and could force me if he wanted to, but he woudn't hurt me, and wouldn't force me. I thought of his mouth when I just kissed him anyway, my lips to his, and the sound of capitulation he'd made when he stopped controlling it, when he let go, when he succumbed. And fuck, his tongue. The scent of him, the way he took over and controlled it anyway, inclining my head back so that he turned _me_ into the one surrendering. The way he exercised command of the situation. There had been far too much space between us but I couldn't press any closer because of the way we were sitting. In a way that made the kiss even sexier, it confined it to our mouths, unaccompanied as it was by any other touching other than hands in hair and on shoulders.

And then the other thing, the thing that had obsessed me and that I'd kept thinking and thinking about. When he'd gotten up and fled, when he'd stood at the door looking back, the dull orange light in the room had lit him up, and had clearly showed that he was as affected as I was by what we'd done. It wasn't just apparent in his uneven breathing, in the barely visible flush across his cheekbones, in the parted lips and darkened eyes as he stared at me. The evidence was there in the hard ridge apparent sideways across his jeans.

Once I got to that part of the scenario I realized this was going to be a quickie all right, I was already on the home stretch, and I'd easily have time for round two. The water hadn't stopped running in the shower yet.

And just as I was about to crest - there was a fucking pounding on the door. Only one person did that.

Would you fucking believe it? My longed-for release disappeared, just melted away to who-knows-where, and fucking Deadwood kept bashing the door, now demanding, "Bella, Bella, open up!"

Bliss-blocked by the very man I was fantasizing about! And at the worst possible moment.

I stomped out of bed, managing to forget that last night I couldn't walk, and wrenched the door open, growling, "_Where's the fire_?"

Edward's mouth dropped open. I turned around, the adrenalin of near-orgasm, then being startled and annoyed by Prince Fuckward wearing off rapidly, and limped back into the room. He didn't follow.

"Well you just scared the crap out of me banging on the door like that - was there something you actually wanted?" I asked snidely, and he blinked, then regained a bit of composure and stepped in after me. I remembered belatedly that just as Lauren had woken up looking like she'd been attacked by Jackson Pollock in the night, I was probably quite a sight, too. Last night, the Venus de Milo. This morning, a gargoyle.

And once I curled my legs on the bed and sat down I realized something else too. I was only wearing panties and a skimpy singlet.

"Uh - your ankle. I wanted to check your ankle," he said, and I inwardly smirked. He was discomfited because I was in a state of undress. Well, _bite_ me!

"Sure," I purred like a compliant, fluffy, butter-wouldn't-melt kitten. "You'll have to either kneel at my feet, or sit on my bed and I'll put my foot in your lap. Which would you prefer?"

He sat on the floor, my naked thighs a matter of inches from his face, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had been in a state of high arousal when I was so rudely interrupted. If he had any sort of a sense of smell, he couldn't be unaware of it. With an expressionless face and gentle, steady hands he unwrapped the bandage, paying very close attention to it and not letting his gaze move elsewhere.

When my ankle was bare he ran his fingers over it, prodding lightly and asking, "How does that feel?"

It felt fucking fantastic. It would feel even better if he'd move his hands up a little. And then a little more. And then inwards.

"A lot better than last night. It's really not very painful now," I assured him, and he cleared his throat.

"Very good Ms Swan. We won't have to amputate," he said, and finally looked up at me. "Ah - last night, Bella."

He carefully put my foot down, and swallowed hard.

"Last night shouldn't have happened. What you and I did was a mistake, and it's not one I'll repeat. I'll be glad when this tour is over."

My smugness evaporated. You fucker. You fucking fucker. That kiss had set me on fire, and I was damn sure it had done the same thing to him. So why was he being like this?

"Have you got a girlfriend?" I asked in a choked voice.

"No," he answered.

So I had my answer about one thing. There was no actual fucking impediment to anything between us other than the fact that apparently, as confirmed by his announcement just now, he just didn't fucking want it. He had some sort of automatic response to me and he didn't like it, and he regretted acting on it. Fuck the fuck fuck. He couldn't wait to get rid of me. He wanted me to be the hell out of his face. It fucking confused me, and it hurt.

"If this tour is so bad why don't you just quit?" I demanded, a tinge of bitterness creeping into my voice.

"I'm not a quitter. And there's not long to go. It's only a matter of days."

He was probably counting them, ticking them off on his everpresent sheaf of paper, putting great black diagonal lines through the pages as he got through each awful day of my presence. It accounted for the pained expression on his face sometimes when I caught him looking at me, the narrow-eyed staring which I had hoped was intense lust, but which must have been intense annoyance and dislike.

"Well, you can go now, unless you're going to give me a pedicure while you're down there," I said, and he stood up, regarding the bombsite around the room.

"We hit the road in an hour," he said. "Will you be ready?"

"Don't worry your sweet ass," I said, dully. "I'll be ready."

.

.

.

Oh crap. He kissed her like she was the last girl on earth, and the next day he was just cold. Don't you hate that?


	14. Chapter 14

I'll have the french onion soup, followed by the mushroom and sweet potato risotto, and the layered chocolate meringue cake, then gorgonzola and mandarin slices with a little wee glass of Tokaji and chapter 14 of

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

merci

Well, that put an end to any hope of Bella's happy time. Seriously. The mood was gone baby, gone.

I sat on the bed, shoulders slumped, after Deadwood had left and then, fuck it, just rolled myself up in the sheets again. I simply couldn't be assed getting up.

Lauren finished her shower, and after a few minutes the sound of the hair dyer started up, and still I lay there.

And then, the marvelousness of my morning became even better. The slow, heavy ache that had been hovering on the periphery for days, and that I'd been half ignoring-half wallowing in justified and resolved itself, resulting in a rush between my legs. Thank you, fucking fairy of uterine self-renewal.

"Lauren!" I yelled. I really needed the bathroom. There was about to be a situation. Did hotels charge you extra if you had a woman incident on their sheets?

And then my phone rang.

Fucking Deadwood telling me to hurry the fuck up, no doubt. Or telling me I was a pathetic loser and couldn't kiss for shit. Or telling me that he couldn't help noticing when he was following me back into the room that I had the wrong day of the week panties on, the fucking pedant. Although, like as if he'd look at my butt, being such a repressed asexual.

But nope, it was the Jaxinator.

"Hey, Bella, how's my wounded warrior?" he drawled, southern and gentlemanly.

"Uh, surviving. There's been blood loss," I mumbled, which was true, although the blood loss was very recent and nothing to do with my ankle. "I was clinically dead. The medics don't know why I'm still here. They're calling it a miracle. I'm going to be canonized."

He chuckled on the other end. "Well, honey, I was wanting to suggest - our vehicle has more room in it than yours does, and you need to be comfortable, with an injury of that magnitude. Would you like to ride with us today?"

"Uh," I said, picturing myself in the Jaxmobile. We had a mere van - they had an actual RV thingy, and there were even four narrow little beds. Lauren and I had done big pervs over it several times, imagining ourselves hitting the bigtime and traveling in a vehicle we could lie down full-length in, and not be on the floor.

"And by the way, I would like to formally extend the invitation to the lovely Lauren as well. Would you ladies do us the honor of accompanying us on our journey this fine day?"

God, southern manners. Or was the Jaxinator was making a move? I had a face like a Weeping Angel and forty-five minutes to assemble myself and my packing, if I accepted his offer. And stem the flooding of the red Amazon.

I spent a split-second thinking I was a fucking idiot bitch for taking so little time to get over Gog and go running after the next guy who showed any interest in me. Within the same split-second I reminded myself that I had actually spent way more time engaged in friendly conversation with Jasper than I had with Fuckwood and I had thought Jasper was gorgeous for longer than I had _known_ Fuckwood. In the same split second I knew myself to be an irredeemable dick, and I even had time to accuse myself of over-thinking. However, I doubted that Jasper would have noticed any time lapse, because I thought so fast. Perhaps not clearly, but still very fast.

"Mmm-mm," I responded.

"We'll come and collect you both," Jasper said, and hung up.

Lozzie finished in the bathroom, and she didn't even know about my dear morning visitor and what had transpired. I told her the news about traveling with the Monsters and she said, "I don't know, Bella. Remember what I said about Tyler? I wouldn't want to sit next to him for hours and try to chat, you know?"

"Why? Not feeling strong in your resolve?" I enquired, and went to wash up.

The Monsters were just pulling in to the hotel's circular driveway as we emerged. Gog was at reception returning our keys and finalizing the account, and he seemed surprised as Tyler got out of the driver's seat and came into the foyer.

"I'm picking the girls up. They're riding with us," Tyler explained.

"No, they're not," Edward answered flatly.

Tyler looked confused. "Jasper said the girls are in the RV today," he said.

Edward gave me an even, blaming look.

"Actually, the Swan Initiative are going to prepare for their instore appearance this afternoon. We've got the acoustic guitars in the van and they've got a twenty minute set to rehearse. Thanks, Tyler. We'll see you," he stated in a tone that brooked no refusal.

Tyler didn't seem too worried - he wandered off while I stared at Edward. I did more than stare, I went up and poked him in the arm.

"Herr Fuhrer," I said. "I broke my leg in seventeen places, as you know, and The Monsters' vehicle is paramedically equipped. And their GPS is broken and Lauren knows how to find magnetic north using her earrings. Why can't we go with them?"

"You are my responsibility," he answered. "I can't keep an eye on you if you're in some other band's traveling roadshow. And you have work to do."

What a fucking martinet.

We rehearsed a twenty-minute set in twenty minutes, since Deadwood hadn't cottoned on yet to the fact that we were _professionals_, and then there was the rest of the hundred-year drive.

I boiled, and bubbled and simmered and stewed. We stopped for gas and the boys were doing the nipple-pinching because they were all so fucking gay and wouldn't come out of their fucking closets, the freakazoids. Except for Edward of course, because he was frigid, and was yet to acknowledge his sexuality, whatever it was.

Since he fucking deserved it, I walked right up to him and socked him one in the ribs. Go periods. Some people say they make you act out of character and do things you wouldn't do otherwise. Some people say they make you act_ in_ character and do things that society's constraints upon you wouldn't allow you to do otherwise.

"Bella," he half-grunted, and didn't say anything else, because obviously, he was a hopeless jerk.

And then we got to the stupid town, and did the stupid record store performance, and actually, I loved it. I could sit down and there were no drums, just Mike and Ron doing really pretty stuff on their acoustic guitars . Lolly-lola and I sang - our voices soaring to the rafters without the fucking electrically enhanced cacophony of electric guitars and a heavily-beaten drumkit mashing all over us. We sounded like nightingales. Note to self: join a choir. With no fucking men in it.

Lots of people came up to get us to sign cd's and talk crap, and it was all good.

Then off we went to the next venue for soundcheck.

Jax greeted me warmly, with the kiss on the cheek and hug that had become our usual hello.

"Baby, how's the limb?" he asked, and his arms came from around me, but his hands stayed on my shoulders.

"Oh, I was able to secure a transplant, from a ballerina who died in a mysterious lawn-mowing accident. I can pirouette twenty-seven times in a row," I told him. "The doctor said I need bourbon to stabilize my condition, though."

Edward had a face like something very dark, but shit, tomorrow was a night off. Give me a fucking break.

I was a bit hobbly onstage, and I told the audience I'd fallen off a racehorse during a steeplechase and been trampled by several more. My ankle wasn't too bad, and we all did okay, and I thought Christ in heaven, this is what I live for. It was loud and energetic and I swear everybody got off. Afterwards we mingled, signing autographs, and chatting to people and my woes were put to one side for a while.

Lauren wasn't watching the FLiMs anymore, because of her rampant libido where the Tyler was concerned and her need to pretend to be untempted, and she and I were sitting in the bandroom staying clear away from the sexy shit going down onstage when Edward came in to speak to us.

"Apparently this place turns into a dance club when the live music finishes," he said. "Tomorrow's a free day for us all, so I've decided we can stay here and party for an hour or two once the Monsters finish. Bella, of course I'll take you back to the hotel now."

Oh, sure. Everyone's allowed to have a late night except me.

"I'd love to stay. I'm doing fine," I beamed at him.

"You must be tired," he said.

"No, really. I'm_ invigorated_," I insisted. "Is the doorbitch getting everyone who comes in to sign up to our mailing list?"

He didn't look too pleased and he went off to attend to, like maybe his fucking _job_, and Lauren and I re-applied our lipstick. When you're singing into a stage mic, your lipstick goes all over the steelmesh cover. It probably looks bad on the mic, but I didn't care about that. On your mouth, the smudging looks like you just gave the blowjob of the century. We had to tidy that shit up, or we'd be giving a bad impression.

Our boys and the FLiMs came back, and they all vivisected the show and then we all went and did some meeting and greeting, and the lights went down to nothing and the strobes started. Pulsing, undeniable, insistent dance beats filled the air and more people came in. It was just like going out in real life, not band life, except that I was with my band. Well, it was quite a big place and there seemed to be about six rooms with different music and halls in between and it was all so fucking black and it was fun for a while but my ankle started to hurt. Quite fucking hurt.

I was hanging with Lauren, when Edward appeared out of nowhere and I grabbed his arm.

"I need my painkillers. They're in the van. Can I have the keys?" I asked him.

"Yes. You know where we're parked? Bay K3," he said. "I've got to go over figures with the manager. Get someone else to go for you. Ask Sam," he said, handing me keys.

"What did Bossyboots say?" Lauren yelled into my ear.

"He said to ask Sam to go to the van for my drugs," I yelled back.

"Well, where the fuck is Sam? I'll go," my stalwart buddy and super friend offered. Lovely Lauren. I handed her the keys, and off she went and I stood in the dark holding my fucking orange juice like a virtuous teenager.

And while I stood there, an arm snaked around my shoulders.

"How are you doing? Do you want to sit down?" a smooth, velvety voice said, and of course, it was the voice of - what? My next venture, hopefully, into carnality? My vengeance on Gog? My next trip into the world of sensuality for its own glorious sake? What?

"Hey, Jasper, thanks. Yeah, I do need to sit down," I answered and he steered me somewhere with sofas and I folded gratefully into one of them, with him sitting down alongside me.

"Your transplant leg looks pretty good. Is it bionic?" he asked.

"Sort of. It's future technology. The doctor said I'll be able to tell when comets are approaching," I said.

"I can imagine how useful that will be," he answered, and he looked pretty serious and I wondered if he really wanted to talk about cosmology, because fuck, I read New Scientist, and I can hold my own. Well, I may not understand everything, but I can quote whole paragraphs verbatim.

However, Jasper didn't want a science talk.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked, and he was all eyes and lips and hair.

"Not entirely. Not exactly," I said, and the music wasn't hugely loud in the room we were in. He could hear me.

"Kind of no, currently," I admitted. "What about you?"

"I don't have a boyfriend either," he said.

"Are you dancing tonight?" I asked. We were in a dance club, after all.

"I'm dancing on the inside, but I wouldn't get up there without you. Can I get you anything?"

Oh, God, courtesy and chivalry and those narrow hips of his. They'll take a man a long way.

"No, I'm just grooving on the vibe. Thanks anyway," I said, and we chatted easily about nothing much because even though it wasn't deafening in there, it was too loud to concentrate on anything major.

About half an hour later my stalker TM came past, looking as fucking friendly as a corrective services officer, asking for the van keys. Lauren had slipped them to me a moment earlier, and I had swallowed my over-the-counter pills and was as happy as you can be on non-prescription medicine and no alcohol. Of course, actually, I _had_ been sneaking alcohol, despite appearances. My innocuous orange juice had a liberal serve of vodka in it, because it was medicinal, and was helping me in my beleaguered state. Dear, sweet Lauren.

I gave Deadwood the keys and he pocketed them, holding his hand back out to me. "Home time," he said, ignoring Jasper.

Jasper gave me a slow, lovely smile and leaned in to nuzzle me, and this time, his kiss was on my neck. If I'd been unsure of him before, I wasn't any more. A kiss on the neck is _way_ more intimate than a kiss on the cheek. The Jaxinator was declaring an interest, and he was doing it in front of Deadwood.

"Home time, _now_," Edward snapped.

"Okay, okay, let's go, Prince Charming," I said to Edward, and slipped from Jasper's grasp. I felt fucked in the head by Deadwood's behavior. I felt a bit fucked in the head by Jasper. Deadwood took my arm and led me through the five other rooms of beats, the five levels of infinity, and I was a little wobbly, having to lean against his side a little bit when we were caught in a bottleneck of party beasts. He slung a supportive arm around me on the way out to the van.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Never fucking better," I answered, looking him straight in the eye. "Are you?"

"Yes, fine. Have you been drinking?"

"You bet. I kissed someone I thought might have been a prince, but actually he was a frog - maybe even a _toad_ - and in despair I took to the orange juice. My corneas are turning yellow but I will never catch another cold," I responded.

"Jesus, Bella, do you ever let up?" he sighed.

.

.

.

Why would I? I mean she?


	15. Chapter 15

Sometimes SM stands for something else

_Deeds and misdeeds, crimes and misdemeanors - who are the perpetrators? Who are the victims?_

Neither shame-faced nor shameful, the not-innocent are not guilty

but accusations abound and there no alibis in chapter fifteen of

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

I was on Planet Zonk when something shrill, repetitive and nasty cut through my adventure. I'd been flying above a galleon and it was towing tea chests of medical supplies I'd stolen from the tyrannical overlord. I was taking them to the desert island where blue Nefertiti held her arms up to me in semaphore. A harness was strapped around my chest and a rope of steel tethered me to the mast, but this was the last flight I had to make to repay her for the gift of my wings, and soon I would have earned my liberation.

The phone put a stop to all that.

"Huh?" I rolled over mumbling, plummeting into the receiver.

"Bella, I need to speak to you. Be in the foyer in twenty minutes," Edward's voice said, and he sounded crisp, chilly, and angry.

"Whatever happened to you knocking the door down like you usually do?" I asked, but he hung up halfway through the sentence.

Well, Jesus, what had got his knickers in such a twist? He'd found out I was still drinking alcohol was the first thing that sprang to mind. Another was that he was so concerned about my voice that the thought I might swap germs with Jasper was flipping him out.

I stumbled around the room without turning the light on, trying not to wake Lauren who hadn't said a fucking word to me last night after we'd gotten home from the club, and I took forty minutes because I just did, and I met Edward at reception.

His face was set like a rock. He wordlessly indicated the diner to the side of the foyer and we went in there and I sat at a booth and ordered a large coffee. He didn't order anything.

"So. Wassup?" I asked, putting on my pleasant face.

He paused, and seemed to be searching for words. Finally, he managed to spit out, "Bella, I have an issue with your lack of respect."

"I beg your pardon?" I said, puzzled.

"I realize that a band on tour is a bunch of people living in exceptional circumstances, but each member of the party needs to accord due consideration to each and every other member of the party as a matter of common courtesy," he continued.

Yeah, touring one-oh-one. Tell it to Mike, I thought.

"Lack of privacy is going to be part and parcel of the touring situation, but there are still basic rules that must be adhered to."

Yes, Edward, are you going to get to the point any time soon?

"Our vehicle is a shared space," he continued, coldly.

Oh, god. Tangents. What the fuck was he talking about?

"Yeesss," I confirmed slowly, because I did know that much.

"We all spend several hours of every day in the van. It has a specific function, and that function is to transport the band. Your actions have demonstrated a flagrant disregard for your bandmates and for me, your manager. I am extremely disappointed in you."

He wasn't just icy, he was glacial. I still didn't have a fucking clue what he was talking about.

"Could you let me knew when you get to the point?" I asked, stirring sugar into my cup.

"The point is, Bella, I don't expect you to ask to borrow the van keys so you can ostensibly get painkillers from your bag, and then treat the band vehicle as your personal hook-up playground."

All his syllables were clipped and he was heating up now. He was starting to look really fucking mad. Carlisle was unflappable, but he hadn't passed the gene on to his son. Edward was dangerously starting to flap.

"Huh_?_" I said, taking a mouthful of coffee which went down the wrong way. I snorted the lot and ended up having a spluttering fit and almost spraying caffeine out of my nose and I think some might have come out of my tear-ducts. Deadwood just watched, not doing anything as I underwent this near-death experience. He didn't even wave for help or get his phone out in case he needed to call an ambulance.

"What is a hook-up playground?" I asked, when I had wiped my face with the paper napkin.

"Don't play the innocent, Bella. You know what I'm talking about."

No, really, I didn't. I frowned, trying to figure it out. I'd been sitting in a dark little room with the Jaxinator half the night and I hadn't even gone out to the fucking van. Lauren had. Uh - Lauren? What's happened, Princess? Why is Edweird so mad?

"So - how did you catch on to me?" I asked, still not knowing what I'd done. Or what Lauren had done.

"You left your underwear in the van..." His voice trailed off.

"My underwear?" I repeated dumbly. I remained clueless, but this was beginning to sound good.

"Come on, Bella. Don't treat me like an idiot. I've seen it before and I recognized it. Remember that day I came to your house and you hadn't even packed yet and I had to put things in a bag for you? That little purple - _item_? I found it last night - or what was left of it," he looked away now, his jaw clenched. He was stonier than an Easter Island moai. "I always check the van once we're in the hotel lot for the night to make sure nothing's been left lying around that could tempt someone to break in. And last night I found... But that's beside the point. The point is if you want to carry on with somebody you meet in one of these towns, or somebody _in another band_, I expect you to exercise a little discretion."

Hmm. Lauren and I always went shopping together on tours. Sometimes we even bought the same things. She had a tiny purple lace thong, just like I did. Based on the allegations, and the circumstantial evidence, I drew a conclusion.

My _hussy_ of a bandmate had gone out to the van, accompanied by Tyler, on the mercy mission she was running for me, and they had thrown reservations to the wind and gotten down to business. Far from her claim that she wasn't going to get her freak on - the _dirty slut_ had got it on all right - and passionately too, if her panties had been destroyed! She must be feeling absolutely terrible now, no doubt all kinds of fucking guilty and shameful and low, after going back on the decision that she wouldn't cheat on James. She'd need comforting from her dear, caring, non-judgemental friend Bells. And fuck it all to hell, she was probably feeling high as a fucking kite. Bitch! I wondered if it had been good, if she'd loved it, if she couldn't wait for more... I couldn't suppress a smirk, and I couldn't wait to hold her down and tickle her until she told me everything. _Everything_.

Edward saw me smirking, of course, because he was watching me like a vulture looks at something that still might get up and run away.

"Bella, this is no laughing matter. I am at my wit's end with you. There are no sanctions I can apply apart from docking your pd's, and I seriously doubt any sanctions would be effective anyway. Your attitude is disgraceful and your behavior is worse."

Poor Edward, he sure was shitty. He sure was shitty with _me_. Fuck, I really didn't like the look on his face, and I felt a slowly dawning annoyance that due to what he saw as damning circumstantial evidence, he really thought I'd limped out to the van last night, disability notwithstanding - ha ha! - and made some monkey magic with some random guy. I could have put myself in the clear by telling him they were Lauren's panties and mine were still perfectly intact, but fuck - it wasn't my call to tell anybody that Lauren had been unfaithful to her boyfriend. It was her private business, and even to get myself off the hook with my furious tour manager whose mood appeared to be rapidly worsening, I couldn't spill Lauren's secret, and I couldn't do that to James, either. Have some complete stranger know that his girl seemed to have screwed around before she'd told him herself? No.

So I sat there, and Edward was going to blow his fucking top.

"Could you show any understanding that you've behaved badly? An apology would be a good place to start," he said, tightly.

God, he was so ready to believe it all! Just because - because what? The second time I'd met him I'd pinned him to a wall and tried to kiss his face off. Then I'd pinned him to a chair and kept trying. Then he seen me perform throat fellatio on Lauren. Then I hadn't flirted exactly, with Jasper, but I hadn't been acting in any way to discourage him. Then I'd tried to kiss Edward again. I must have been coming across as an absolute hornbag. And then, _shit_, last night Jasper had kissed me on the neck! It had been pretty fucking sexy, and fuck, it could have looked post-coital. It was certainly a step beyond the pecks on the cheek Jasper had been giving me up until then. Oh fuck. I understood suddenly that Edward actually thought Jasper and I had engaged in a horny sex act in the van and then gone back into the club and acted cool.

Well, why was he so fucking mad about it? Shared space, blah blah, consideration for fellow travelers, blah blah. He didn't want me himself, he'd made that abundantly clear. Or something. I had no idea whatsoever what Edward Fucking Cullen wanted or didn't want, apart from the fact that he had appointed himself my inhibitor. I couldn't get drunk, couldn't get stoned, and apparently couldn't have a little hanky-panky either. I was allowed no form of good times! What was his fucking issue?

I mumbled something that sounded like, "Yeah, okay, sorry," because I wanted to get out of there. I couldn't stand him looking at me like that because it was unfair and unwarranted, and it made me feel bad. And I really, _really_ needed to speak to my Lolly. If she'd had fithy, rampant, urgent, panty-obliterating action last night, I had to know about it.

Deadwood didn't look mollified in the least. He kept glaring, and actually, those green eyes were kind of fiery, like a fucking tiger. He raked his hair a couple of times so that it stood on end and I had to work really hard to keep naked lust out of my expression, because fuck, he was even a little flushed and looked totally hot, but now he thought I was a completely loose woman and ready to give it up to the nearest man - well, the nearest living thing, really, and that just wasn't true.

"I'm sorry," I said again with a little more conviction, because I _was_ sorry. I was sorry it hadn't been _me_ getting my rocks off and I was sorry he'd erroneously gotten the impression that I was indiscriminate and whorish, and I was sorry he was looking at me like I was a three-horned demon. And then I was a little pissed that he could be so fucking disapproving of something he thought had occurred between consenting adults.

All that would make me feel better would be getting some details from Lauren about smutty, slutty vehicular secksual activity that I was missing out on, so I slunk out of the diner and slunk back upstairs. My girl needed me, I was sure of it.

Lauren was sitting in our room, and was crying.

"Where were you?" she wailed to me. "I woke up and you were gone!"

"I'm here, Lollipop. I've been talking to the lovely Eduardo over a morning caffeine pick-me-up. Whatever's the matter?"

"Oh, God, Bella, I don't even know where to start. Everything's wrong. I really fucked up, I'm such a fool," she mumbled jaggedly, in between sobs.

"Surely not!" I said, in my most caring, loving, confiding, encouraging, soothing voice, but actually, my need for all the debauched details cooled down pretty quickly at Lolly's genuine distress.

"Baby, what is it?" I asked her softly, and sat down on the bed. Her arms were around me instantly.

"I'm a bad, bad person. I cheated, Bella, I cheated on James, and he loves me and I've got to tell him, and I'll hurt him, and he doesn't deserve it..."

I crooned to her, holding her as she cried, and waited for her to calm down enough to tell me.

"Last night, Bells," she shakily began, "you know, when I was going out to get your painkillers? I ran into Tyler, and he said I shouldn't go out in the car lot by myself, and so he came with me, and it was just perfectly friendly and stuff, and I was rummaging around in the trunk and I couldn't find your bag, and then I thought it might be inside, under one of the seats. So I went in, and he came too, to help me look, and we were just sort of talking, and we sat down, and fuck, he asked me about James. It was the first time we'd ever actually been alone together, and fuck, he was right next to me on the seat, really close. He was looking me straight in the eye, and I couldn't lie, so I guess I just kind of mumbled that James and I had been together a long time, but I was feeling like it was sort of over, and then, Tyler just said he was really attracted to me, and he kissed me, Bella, and I just lost it! Oh, God, I just fucking lost it. Tyler said if I'd told him I loved James he wouldn't have touched me, but I didn't say it, and when he kissed me it was so amazing. And we just didn't stop, Bella. I couldn't. It felt so right, and perfect, and beautiful and I wanted him badly... and God, we just _did_ it, we fucked right there on the back seat and _fuck,_ it was the best sexual experience of my life!"

"Oh, Lolita, Lolly, what are you going to do? How are you feeling now? You're obviously upset," I said, envious as hell.

"God, I am. I've got to tell James, but Bells, I have to tell him in person. I can't just ring him up and say oh yeah by the way I got my brains screwed out in the tourvan and you're dumped..."

"No, because that would be harsh," I agreed, stroking her hair. She straightened up and looked at me with a sly grin through the tears.

"Oh, and Tyler on the SM index? High," she added.

"You dirty _bitch_!" I exclaimed. The SM index is Size Matters. Not that Lauren and I discussed such intimate, personal things about men with one another. Much. Personality is what counts, we always fervently and solemnly agreed. Mostly.

"_High_?"

She nodded mutely.

"Slutface," I told her.

"And Bells, please don't tell anyone about this. I have to speak to James. I've told Tyler it can't happen again, until I get my relationship sorted out. I've done the wrong thing, and now I have to do the right thing."

Ha! She'd had a taste of SM High and wasn't going back? Really? Still, there were only four more sleeps until we were home. Maybe she'd be able to hold out that long.

"What about Tyler? What does he think?" I asked.

"He says whatever I need to do, it's okay by him. He'll wait," she answered.

I got ready for the day, unable to tell her what had happened between Edward and me, unwilling to burst her complicated bubble of misery and happiness by telling her that the panties Tyler had torn from her in passion and that she'd forgotten all about in the throes of said passion, had been discovered by our humorless TM. I couldn't tell her that Edward thought they were mine and that he was furious enough to be spitting tacks, and that I was the least popular person on planet earth. She had enough to worry about.

And so when we all met in the foyer and Deadwood wasn't speaking to me and he looked at me like he was Vesuvius and I was Pompeii, I just ignored it.

"It's a free day today, and in your absence, girls, a vote was held," he said stonily. "We're going go-karting."

I whooped. I really did. Because I _love_ go-karting.

"With the Monsters," he added, sounding extremely displeased.

Okay, that added a whole new dimension. Jasper and Tyler, and me and Lauren. And fucking Mr Happy, Deadwood. Oh, _joy_.

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I've been a bit lax on the A/N side of things.

Bound for Glory by withthevampsofcourse

anything by ineedyoursway

chablis, semillon, verdelho, sauvignon blanc and sancerre...

pad thai and tom kha gai

audreyii-fic gkkstitch

and implore inthestars to keep going if she can

oh, and 100 reviews would be nice! (a girl can dream)


	16. Chapter 16

You've heard the song, now read the next thrilling instalment of

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

**circa The Sixteenth Chapter**

We trooped out to the van - me first. I wanted to escape Deadwood's sour face, although I realized he probably thought I wanted to return to the scene of the crime and sit in the spot where I'd experienced my frenzied fuckadelica of the previous night. Actually, I took one look at the back seat and pictured Lauren's naked little bottom wriggling away - or maybe it had been Tyler's and she'd been sitting on him? Whatever, I decided to forego the rear of the vehicle, and slipped into the seat just in front.

Before getting in, Lauren excused herself to go to the bathroom and Mike grumbled about her needing to check her fucking mascara, adding wouldn't I like to check mine too since I looked such a fright as usual. To my surprise, Deadwood snapped at him. Holy heck. So I wasn't the only one on the recieving end of this morning's ire.

Once Lauren turned up again and slid in next to me, Edward set the GPS for "Karters' Paradise". We'd barely gone twenty yards before Lolly clapped her hand to her mouth, eyes wide and shocked, and she actually left her seat while the van was in motion. A second later she was down on her hands and knees on the floor. Maybe that's how they'd done it? I thought.

Of course, besides watching the road like a responsible driver, Deadwood was employing hawk-vision combined with an infra-red sensor to monitor any possible sign of life amongst his cargo, I mean passengers.

"Lauren, please sit properly," he admonished promptly, though in a far kinder tone than he'd used on me or Mike.

"Jesus, Lauren, now is not the time for a re-enactment," I hissed to her, and she turned worriedly to me.

"Ah, actually, um," she mumbled, and came up close. "Bella, I sort of left my panties in the van last night, you know, amidst all the excitement, and now I can't find them. _Shit_!" she whispered.

"Baby, I've taken care of everything. Don't worry about it. I found them a minute ago, before anybody else got in, and I've - er - disposed of them. The boys don't know a thing," I whispered back, and she sighed.

"God, you're a good friend, Bells," she said, and really, she didn't know just how good.

"Sit with Aunty and relax. Look, we'll break the landspeed record around that course today, and leave all our worries behind, okay?" I suggested.

Lollydrops didn't look too convinced, and quite honestly, I wasn't either.

And we turned up there, and it might as well have been Weirdos Day Out. The Lolster went as red as a beet as soon as Tyler turned up, and avoided him in a glaringly obvious way. She drove so poorly that she ran her kart up over the tires on the boundaries and nearly rolled it. A bunch of Karters' Paradise staff had to rescue her, and Tyler hovered around looking so anxious that it was very fucking apparent to anybody with intact vision and two brain cells to rub together that something was going on there.

Luckily for Lauren, no-one in our band has two brain cells to rub together so her sordid secret was quite safe.

Mikey, of course, drove like the clown he is and caused a motorway blockage. Ron and Ben drove like pussies, all over the fucking track and in the way. The FLM's were varying degrees of hopeless, and if this had been the evolutionary race they'd have been on the road to sure extinction. All except for Jasper, who negotiated the curves in a smooth and thrilling way and then slammed into go-baby-go mode on the home straight. I might have raised an eyebrow or two.

Meanwhile, Edward, who always drove so carefully, so safely, so law-abidingly, proved to be a risk-taker, a speed freak and a danger junkie and he burned around the track like a fucking aggressive maniac.

I drove like someone who hadn't had a fuck in months and was taking it out on the world, so really, it was no surprise that I happened upon Mike's fifty car pile up and made it fifty-one, and managed to actually overturn my kart and find myself upside-down. Jasper jumped out of his kart on course, which you're not supposed to do, and came to check on me. Presumably Edward was too busy being maniacal to notice.

Moments later though, he skidded to a halt, threw his helmet off and came running over, swearing.

"_Jesus_, Bella, you got your driver's license out of a fucking cereal packet?" he griped at me. "Are you all right?"

Jasper had helped me out and was brushing dirt off me, his hands at my thighs, having already asked about broken bones.

"'Mokay," I said, hoping it was true. There had been a bit of a jolt, but that had happened afterwards, and I thought it had something to do with Jasper's hands, rather than a medium speed crash. Jasper grinned and took those hands back, with Edward glaring. This was all very awkward and difficult, and I was sure there was some more dirt that Jasper had missed around my hips and backside, and I thought there might be some on my chest too, but Edward was so angry. He probably thought that I might not be fit for the show the next night. God, he was a wanker.

"Do I need to take you to a doctor? Are you dizzy? Nauseous?" he went on, firing questions at me.

"No," I said.

"Watch my finger. _Focus_," he ordered, holding one digit up in front of me and moving it from side to side.

I rolled my eyes round and round, just to piss him off, and dear Temperward was getting madder again, predictably.

"Look, I'm _fine_, okay? Never better," I insisted. "Watch me do the stork position. You can't do it if you've got whiplash."

Standing on one leg, I pressed the inside of my raised foot against my opposite knee, hands stretched wide to either side.

"You may not have whiplash. Evidently, you're still insane," Edward muttered.

And then the Rent-A-Kart crew got the reading from their electronic timer business that clocks everyone's speed and tells you at the end who was the fastest. Big Sam, our quiet hero, won out of everyone _ever_, and was going on the Wall of Fame. Edward came second. Lolly, Tyler, Jasper and I all got scratched because we didn't do enough laps. The others were told they were average scorers, except for Mike whose name was going to be immortalized on the Wall Of Shame.

As we were all milling about discussing the results, Jasper approached me.

"So did you hear about the accom upgrade?"

"Ah, no."

"Apparently, your manager has decided that for the last few nights you're staying in the same hotel as us. The door staff have been checking the figures every night - you know how when people come into the venue they're asked to tick a box on a form saying which band or bands they've come to see? You're getting quite a following, and our manager has increased your fee. So your manager - Carlisle? - has booked you into the same accommodation as us, from tomorrow night."

Well, color me surprised. And Lauren too. Heavens above. How are two lovelorn, lust-crazed girls supposed to respond to that sort of a newsflash?

And then of course, shit, crap, fuck, Deadwood came down like a wolf on the fold and said it was time to go, and Jasper flashed all five hundred of his beautiful shiny teeth at me, and parted those perfectly formed lips into a smile as wide as the Mississippi. He put a searing hand on my shoulder that nearly burned clear through my shirt and promised, "See you, darlin'," leaving me blinking like the confused stupid idiot that I was.

We had another town to get to.

And I decided to sit up front with Deadwood, both to distract myself, and to keep him company.

"Managing to keep all your pieces of paper in order?" I asked him, on the drive.

"Mm-hmm."

"How are all the figures looking?"

"_Fine._"

"Enjoying the job?"

"It has its moments."

"You know - I've never thought to ask - do you like the music?"

Shrug. A pretty fucking resounding and loud 'no comment'. _What?_

"That telegraph pole up your ass must be mighty uncomfortable," I remarked, thinking 'somebody bring me boxing gloves and stand by for the KO'.

He gave a scornful snort. "There is nothing up my ass, Bella, I assure you."

"Then why are you so - ? Oh, I know, you're _cold_."

From the treasure trove of my bag I'd grabbed some knitting needles and yarn, with the intention of creating something splendid and useful, and I was clacking away as I talked to him, creating something that was basically a network of holes held together by wool. I was very new to the knitting lark, and it was a mite trickier than old ladies made it look.

"I'm knitting you a scarf, to stave off the chills," I said in a kind tone that I mustered from somewhere, and he ignored me.

"_Are_ you cold?" I asked.

"No. I am trying to focus on the driving. It would a lot easier without listening to your prattle."

Now he was being downright rude.

"What about multi-tasking? Can't you drive and chat at the same time? Look at me, I can knit and be friendly," I said.

"You can knit and shut up," he responded.

Jesus, for five minutes about a thousand years ago I thought he had a sense of humor. I even thought he was cocky and sure of himself. I thought he wasn't stiff and uptight and a fucking bastard. He kept switching on me though. Nice Edward, horrible Edward. Horrible Edward, nice Edward. I never knew which of them he was going to be. Perhaps today he'd let himself become overwrought by thinking I didn't respect the shared space? Was that the problem? Either that, or he was tired, or he hated me.

"Are you tired?" I asked, wanting to eliminate that before raising the other two possibilities.

"No," he snapped, and I glanced at him, and saw he really _was_ looking tired, actually. Well, _deal_ buddy! _Rock and roll! _He fucking signed up for it! Late nights and poorly behaved degenerates - everyone knows that! But the tiredness and ill humor didn't suit him, and I was unhappy about this version of Edward who disliked me so much. I decided not to delve any deeper, or to favor him any more with the benefit of my pleasantries, and I pouted down at my knitting with my mouth good and shut.

At the next stop Ben took over driving and I went and sat with Lauren. Edward was in a middle seat on his own with his jacket screwed up into a pillow between his head and the window, and his eyes closed.

Lollipop stared vacantly out at the passing landscape on her side, looking upset.

"Did you hear about the accommodation? Did Tyler tell you?" I asked in an undertone and she nodded.

"Last thing I need," she mumbled. Me, too, sister.

When we checked into the next hotel that evening I left her, since she seemed to need some alone time, and I wandered to the boys' room. We were all exhausted, really. We watched movies in amicable silence, and I was next to Sam on the couch and actually fell asleep on his shoulder. I guess he teleported me back to my room somehow, because in the morning I woke up in the right place. For the first time in a while I hadn't drunk anything the night before, and I'd had a good ten hours sleep.

Precisely at eleven, Deadwood rang, having seemingly given up on the door-pounding because he wouldn't come to our room in case I was in my underwear and it might have the wrong day of the week on it. That would ruin his fucking schedule. He barked down the phone that we had a photo shoot that afternoon.

Well, Lauren and I forgot all our troubles and woes and found a costume hire place in town and went crazy. We had nothing to eat, because we spent all our pd's, and that night we were gonna fucking spin the world out of its tiny little mind.

For the shoot I was styling myself on Lily Munster, with a long wig and a ton of make-up, and a long black gown-thing that looked like it was made of cobwebs. Lauren was Marilyn with a styled blonde wig and a figure-hugging dress. We went and paraded in the boys' room while they gawped at us.

"Wear black," I ordered, and they all have black because none of them have any form of self expression or individuality, and black is their safety color. We did the whole camp horror thing and the photographer loved us, and was saying shit like, "Give it to me baby, I'm getting_ hard_," although he was camp as fuck, and very obviously gay.

"Boys, you wayward, sexy darlings, when you look into the camera, part your lips very slightly and blow. That'll make it look like you're making love to the lens, and to whoever is looking at these pictures. And my pictures are the _best_. Believe me, _everyone_ will be looking," he said. The boys actually found their inner poseurs, and got right into the vibe. I kept saying faux-French stuff like, "Je suis une sex star", for the whole session, and Lauren kept gasping, "Bella, that's _French_," and kissing me, and the photographer was saying, "Wrong freak show, right attitude, darlings." The pictures were going to be pretty wild, but _that's_ how you get your name around.

Then we had our gig, and we'd found costumes for that too. Lauren and I had hired tight all-in-one bodysuit outfits - one red with a black speed stripe down the sides, and the other silver, and we got mullet wigs. I was Joan Jett and she was Cherie Currie. I even got hold of Ron's spare guitar and slung it around me all night, miming playing it. Sam kept the volume fader way down so that my lack of guitar-goddess finger nimbleness wasn't a sonic problem. The audience went ballistic, and I went ballistic myself, loving my borrowed persona.

The costumes, however, appeared to be some sort of problem. Or solution.

Throughout our set, Jasper stood at side of stage with his mouth hanging open, not even bothering to conceal the fact that he was panting like a dog. Gog stood around with an I-am-a-sex-god-but-I-wouldn't-have-sex-with-you-because-I'm-too-fucking-tense-and-you're-too-fucking-fucked face. I flounced off past them both when we'd finished and went down the front, where I got absolutely swamped with slobbering fans. The Swan Menagerie then watched the fuckawesome Monsters and grooved our asses off, and our hot bitchin' headline act were lazier and dirtier than ever.

In the band room afterwards Jasper, sweaty and out of breath and downright fucking filthy, came straight to me.

"Bourbon?" he asked, unevenly.

Well, fuck, I couldn't get in any more trouble with Sargent Cullen than I was already in, and I couldn't be more unpopular, but I decided not to go for broke, god knows why.

"Ixnay on the ourbon-bay," I answered reluctantly and the Jaxinator shrugged and grabbed me a juice. And then he took his shirt off - his wet, clinging, muscle-molding shirt. Right off. There was his little tattoo, claiming disorientation. Give me strength. If he didn't move the hell away I was going to suck it.

Luckily I decided to check out Lauren's situation, and there she was - all tortured and mixed-up and clearly wrestling with the dilemma of whether to ignore Tyler or jump him. It couldn't have been helping that he was sitting next to her with exactly the same expression.

And then Jasper leaned to me and drawled, "I hope that's a wig, and you didn't really get your beautiful hair all cut," and he started pulling gently on the feathered strands. Putting his fingers in, he was threading them through and narrowing his eyes at me as he found the hair clips holding the base of the weave in place.

"Bella," he growled playfully, and started to tug at it. Around this time I noticed that a few people had spilled into the room - punters from the show asking questions and wanting band members to sign things. Jasper and I ended up in a corner together, close, him still touching my hair and watching me keenly.

Self-conscious and weak-kneed, I mumbled, "Um, respect the mullet." Underneath the wig my hair would be all squashed flat and if the wig accidently came off due to the fondling, a roomful of people to see me like that. As well as that, it felt _far_ too nice. Even though it wasn't my own hair he was touching, he was still making my scalp tingle.

With a nod, Jasper took his hand away, but he didn't take it very far. In fact, only as far as the slider of the zip at the front of my jumpsuit. What the hell was he doing? Was he seriously going to start pulling the zipper down? Jesus! My mouth dropped open in a gasp and I looked quickly down to his fingers when he brought them up to flick me lightly under the chin.

"Gotcha," he teased, that stunning mouth smiling just for me. Fuck, even his pretty green _eyes_ were smiling and I caught my breath. He'd clearly started a campaign in earnest now, he was flirting with intent, and I realized that all the earlier grins and cheek-kissing had been nothing.

"Um, I need the bathroom," I mumbled in confusion, because, clearly, though unfortunately, I was born an idiot.

"Okay, pretty lady," he whispered, and I took the opportunity to flee, looking for fans to talk to, looking for diversions, looking for anything. Deadwood came to fetch me and I was relieved, hiding from Jax, hiding from myself. I didn't know what day it was without consulting my underwear, and wasn't sure of my own name. The Jaxinator had rendered me a complete fucking mess.

So Deadwood drove the members of the Swan Imperative back to the hotel, and that was the end of the day.

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Anything to rec?

Firefly in Summer

Sleep on the Floor


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: All my own silly, crazy work but I borrowed the names.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

I learned the truth at **Seventeen**

Actually, it's always premature to say the day's over when my girl Lolly and I are in a room together, and we are both still drawing breath. We have all sorts of activities we engage in, like midnight yoga, or paper-ball throwing with the lights off, trying to ascertain one another's whereabouts by the sounds of our breathing. Our objective for this tour had been to limber up enough to be able to do the splits, but neither of us were anywhere near our goal. Doing the splits is difficult and painful, and you have to have started when you were about three years old. We were too late by a long shot, although alcohol certainly helps flexibility. For instance, we're both quite good at shoulder stands after half a bottle each of zinfandel.

Tonight there was no way I was getting to sleep without some sort of session to work out my frustrations. And my annoyances. And my general level of wanting to tear my hair out over not knowing what was going on in my life. In short, I was beside myself, although trying to act normal and Lauren was clearly in no better condition. In tacit agreement we made very quick work of the viognier she'd brought back from the rider.

Flushed and lovely from the gulping, Lauren reached for my hand.

"Bella, I've been a terrible friend, because now that I can see clearly, I've realized that you're totally psycho tonight. What's happened? It's one of those boys, isn't it? Or both of them? I noticed Eddie was in a terrible mood today - have you two fallen out? And you were hanging with Jax at that club, while I was, ah, outside. Ohmigod - has something happened? Did Jax come on to you? You _have_ to tell me!"

Yes to all your questions.

"Edward and I haven't argued or anything, we just talked and he clarified his hatred of me and Jax - yes, he came on to me," I admitted, feeling a tingle all the way down my spine as I did so. "Yesterday he kissed me on the neck - it was practically a _hickey_, and tonight he was playing with my hair, and then he pretended to pull my zipper down. Jesus, Lolly, I thought he was going for my tits. I didn't know what to do."

"Well, girl, why not? He's a fucking babe, and he's into you, and you like him, don't you? I don't understand your born-again virgin position. What about the hot monkey sex?"

I sighed. It just wasn't as easy as all that. "Lozzie, dammit..." I started, and I was about to explain all my conflict, and then I had a fucking mind melt - a moment of lightbulb illumination. What _was_ so fucking hard about the whole situation? What_ about_ the monkey sex? Jasper wasn't a fan, or a deviant or a jerk. He was a musician who didn't appear to be screwed up, he could actually hold conversations, he was all kinds of good company, and fucking plain gorgeous. And he obviously liked me, and I liked him. And Edward was frigid and a zombie. What was my _problem_? We weren't talking marriage here, and mortgages and kids and a lifetime of wage-slavery, we were talking about uncomplicated good times.

"Okay, Lauren. There's only one way to decide this," I said, and we played rock, scissors, paper.

"Best out of seventeen," Lauren said.

"Yes," I agreed. "I you win, I hump Jasper. If I win, I hump you."

I won, but I had cheered up considerably and was ready for the next competition, so I suggested our favorite game, mountain goats and pumas. One of us gets on the bed on our hands and knees, pretending to be a mountain goat, grazing. The other one is the puma, which attacks the goat. This basically involves a tumble of arms and legs and screaming. We made a solemn oath to drop the topic of boys long enough for a decent round or two, and had just commenced proceedings when suddenly there was a tentative knock on the door. At late o'clock.

"Christ. Who's there?" I squeaked, with a startled glance over my shoulder at Lauren, who had jumped on my back.

"It's Tyler," a voice answered.

"Are you here?" I hissed to Lauren. "I can tell him you're in a meeting."

She was just as surprised as me, but she walked to the door to let him in. His expression said he needed to see her and wanted to talk and he asked, "Is it okay, Bella? I'm sharing with Jasper - I know it's quite late, but he's up and channel-surfing. Could I speak to Lauren for a while and maybe you could hang with Jaz?"

Lauren looked flustered. She and I had snatched a couple of chats during the day, although nothing in depth, but presumably she and Tyler needed to have a discussion. When she gave me a tiny nod, I nodded back, torn between a) God, what do I do now? and b) Who wants to be kicked out of their warm, happy room just for their best friend's sake? With a bit of c) Jasper? Did anybody bring up the possibility of hot monkey sex?

"Three-oh-five - that's where Jaz is. Thanks, Bella," Tyler said, and Lollipop shot me a glance of gratitude mixed with mild panic. I wandered off and found myself knocking on Jasper's door, still in my red jumpsuit.

He opened the door sleepily, but his eyes snapped wide open and he beamed when he saw it was me.

"Uh - oh, hey there Miz Bella - what a pleasure to see you!" he said, and his hair was all scrambled and his smile was lazy and sliding over his face and he stepped back and let me in. His shirt was partially unbuttoned and he was buff and sculpted and smooth-chested and Gog hated me.

"I know you've told me you don't smoke, Bella, but I was just about to have a spliff. I won't if you'd prefer I didn't," he said, and held up a joint. Gog hated me.

"Oh, Jesus, I don't mind, and while you're at it, can I've a toke, too?" I asked weakly.

"Sure, come on out outside to the balcony," he nodded, and led me to the back of the room, out through the french doors, and he lit up the jay. The end glittered crimson as he took a drag on it. "This is really good gear, darlin', not too heavy. I don't like anything heavy when I'm on tour because I don't want to be fuzzy and down the next day. This is just relaxing and giggly and a bit dreamy. You'll like it," he assured me, handing it over.

I hadn't had a smoke for weeks, since the fun-robber had taken over my life. I drew on the filter tip, then let it go and inhaled more and held my breath. As a singer, I can hold my breath quite a long time. I felt the burning deep down and expanded my lungs, imagining the THC curling along all the bronchi tube lung structural things I vaguely remembered learning about in school, and diffusing into my blood and then pulsing up to my brain, freeing my fucking mind. I took another hit, and passed it back.

We stayed outside, silent, until the reefer had no more to give, and Jasper stubbed it out on the railing.

"Feelin' cruisy?" he asked.

I sure fucking was.

"Let's get comfortable," he suggested, reaching towards me, and it was good that he did because I was feeling so fucking cruisy that I staggered right into him. We both laughed as he brought his arm around my shoulders and still laughing, we walked awkwardly back into the room. My left side was glued to his right side, and we hadn't gone more than a few steps before we inevitable fell over. As luck would have it, we didn't hit the floor. Easily and fluidly, we found ourselves lying on one of the beds together.

"Are you okay? I'm not squashing you am I?" Jasper asked.

The position we'd landed in was reminiscent of mountain goats and pumas, but I liked it a whole lot more. And no, he wasn't squashing me but I'd be more than happy if he did. He was much, much heavier than Lauren. I like that in a guy.

And speaking of Lolly -

"Um, Lauren and Tyler?" I started, and I giggled my head off. What a fucking mess. You've got to see the funny side.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Neither do I," I answered.

The TV was blaring out some music show, and we piled up all the pillows and half-sat, half-reclined, watching the clips and keeping up a deeply sarcastic commentary. I was buzzing and wanting to be closer to him, while at the same time self-conscious and wary of doing anything unwelcome.

"So Swan-girl, do you think relationships between musicians can work?" he asked at one point, and I shrugged, wracking my brains.

"Sure, look at Sonny and Cher. Kurt and Courtney. Oh, those were all debacles. Um - that guy from that band, and - um - whatsername?" and fell into giggles again.

"Who are you talking about?"

"I don't know."

The Killers were on, and Brandon Flowers was singing especially for me, and life just doesn't get any better than this. Stoned, off my face, happy, out of my mind... I floated off to never-never land and became enveloped in a sense of gentle, pulsing excitement, feeling every beat and every note, overwhelmed, overcome and drifting...

"Bella," Jasper murmured, and his voice was husky and deep and I turned away from the tv to look at him. My eyes had slid into double vision because I hadn't been focusing at all, and it took quite an effort to condense the peculiar, faceted, insect-vision view I had of him into human reality. Big mistake. He'd rolled onto his side and those rare green-gold irises were very close, and for the first time in history, Jasper Whitlock wasn't smiling. His dark lashes swept his cheek as his gaze drifted to my mouth and back to my eyes like a silken touch. His crazy, tangled, wavy hair was falling over his face. His mouth... his mouth was impossible.

I always knew I'd be fucking helpless if he ever looked at me like he was looking at me now. There'd been a couple of photos of him pouting that I'd seen, and they'd been bad enough, but never, ever a photo of him about to kiss someone. Now I knew what it looked like, and the last thing I saw was seriousness and intent as his lips found mine.

Jesus H Fucking Christ.

Did this man do everything slow? The smooth, drawling way he spoke; the way he sang, just behind the beat enough for you to be on a constant edge of feeling time standing still, and of simultaneously feeling absolutely fucking drugged and yet urgent. Now his lips were moving on mine, warm, wet, delicious and so fucking _slow_ I didn't even feel the fire until it burned me. I didn't feel the danger until - oh fuck. Probably everyone's body responds to rhythm, but mine did in this case in a way that was primal, and the persuasion of his lips set off an imperative; a resolve to push my hips into his in obeyance to an ancestral directive.

Not every male is a potential mate - my three bandmates, for instance - but I _needed_ to fuck Jasper Whitlock.

I whimpered like a cat in heat as his hand slid to stroke my waist, and I was so fucking out of it my hands were at his front before I even knew it, pushing his shirt up. Because I play guitar now and again I can't grow my fingernails, so it was the pads of my fingers that strayed over his chest and nipples, and followed the nature trail down his belly. His skin was supple and silken under my touch and he flinched a little, halfway between a chuckle and a groan. And all the while those incredible, supple, soft lips were everything I could ever have imagined, and his tongue found mine, convincing me there was no place on earth I'd rather be.

We didn't break the kiss, we couldn't, as he slid a thigh forward between both of mine and he kept it all so slow I felt like I hadn't breathed in ten minutes. I felt like I was underwater. He curved a hand down my side gently to my ass, pulling me closer to him, our mouths continuously moving together, his tongue probing, but gentle and curious, his hand slipping to the underside of my knee and pulling my leg up over his hip. I felt it then, I felt him, his erection and my eyes dizzily opened. Oh my god.

"Jasper, please," I whispered, my mouth easing back from his, his eyes closed in the flickering light from the tv, his lips glistening from the moisture of us together.

"Please what, baby?" he murmured. "Please yes? Please no?"

It had been months for me. He felt so fucking good, and I liked him, and he was waiting for me. No groping, no rushing, no coercing. His disturbed breathing evidenced his arousal, but he wasn't pushing me. I ached in response to him, and in readiness for him, and he swallowed and breathed, "Bella," bringing his hands up to my face.

"Are we going to do this?" he whispered, and I couldn't even answer. I leaned up to him again, because I couldn't get enough of that mouth, and he sighed into me, his tongue following his breath. His mouth was fucking _heaven_, that kiss reaching down into my very core and setting it pulsating. We floated on the tide of to and fro, forwards and back, slipping and sliding, warm and willing yet with no urgency, just a flow between us, our lips and our hips, moving and giving.

But there was something in the way. Two somethings.

I was on my period. I am not big on period fucking - I never have been; and even now, even tonight, high and lusting and on the edge of pleasure with this man unravelling me, I couldn't face it. It was anathema to sex for me.

The other something was - Gog. Maybe he hated me, but I didn't hate him. I didn't fucking _like_ him, it was a lot more complex than that, but I had to sort it all out in my head. Kissing Jasper was sexy as all hell, and lying on a bed with his hands on me and my hands on him was turning me molten. If he kept his thigh right where it was for the next few minutes, and kept a firm grip on my ass, and maintained the pushing and pressing he was doing now...

Kissing Edward had been entirely different, but admittedly, he and I hadn't kissed like we'd be fucking within minutes. It hadn't been the sexual dynamite Jax was giving me - it had felt deeper, I'd felt more connected, I'd felt like I'd found the fucking key to the universe. But what the fuck was I thinking about that for? That was never going to happen again. _Shut up_, brain.

Jasper was real, and here and now, and electrifying. I wanted his mouth on my breasts, I wanted his lips wrapped around my nipples and tugging on them, and if that nimble clever mouth went any further south I'd probably depart this life for good on a fucking cloud accompanied by crashing waves and fireworks...

However, much as I might want to let Jasper Whitlock into my body right now, the dictates of the moon didn't favor it, and I had to tell him.

"Uh, Jasper," I said to his shoulder, after what felt like another hour on another planet, floating and hazy with tongue-massage. "I can't have sex with you."

Silence, except for the rustling of the sheets as he rolled away, one arm over his eyes.

"Ah, okay, Bella, of course," he said, and I saw the deep breaths as he calmed himself. Then he turned back to his side, propping his cheek on one hand as he lay looking at me. The other hand still touched me at the indentation where my waist met my hip, stroking.

"Do you want me to stop doing this?" he asked.

Oh, God, I didn't want to stop any of it. Weed takes away some responsibility, but not all. Under the influence of the weed I wanted him badly. Without the weed, I would still have wanted him, but I was conflicted. I didn't know what to say, but if I didn't say anything he'd keep going, wouldn't he? Silence gives consent.

"I'm sorry Bella, if I'm getting this wrong, but I thought that's why you came to see me tonight," he murmured, and that's when it hit me that when he'd said he didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned Tyler and Lauren, maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he really didn't know! So, shit, what had he thought when I'd knocked on his door in the middle of the night? No wonder he was so pleased to see me! He'd thought I was there for one thing!

"Uh, Tyler?" I ventured.

"Oh, he's a fitness freak. Most nights he goes running for a couple of hours after shows. It helps him wind down. Are you worried he's going to come back and catch us inflagrante? He'll be a while yet." That hand was resting on my hip, but his thumb was tracing circles. Downward circles.

I decided to be honest, and to hell with the consequences.

"Jasper, I've got my period. And I like you a lot, but I like someone else, and I liked him first. He and I haven't had a chance yet, and he might even hate me for all I know, but I'd really blow it if you and I went any further here..." I trailed off.

He let out a long sigh. "Here's the thing," he said. "I like you a lot too, Bella. A _lot_. There's a girl at home I've got my eye on, but she doesn't know it, and I have no idea what she thinks of me. I've only met her a couple of times. But you and I are alone here tonight, and neither of us have a lover, and neither of us would be cheating if we made each other feel good. And, quite honestly, this girl is pretty and lovely and clever, and you're feisty and smart and talented, and for me it could go either way. I want you, and if you wanted me back you'd have me - right now. It's that simple, Beautiful. You and I could be great together - and as a bonus, you understand what I do, and I understand what you do. I don't fuck around, and it doesn't look like you do either. And if you want to give this thing between us a try, just say the word, because I'm keen. If you don't, I'll be sorry, but you won't break me, and I still want to be your friend. What happens in this room stays in this room, unless we decide otherwise, and whatever we do or don't do, you have my affection and respect. We can call it nothing, we can call it one night, or we can call it more. What do you want?"

His thumb was sweeping half-circles on my belly, the lower part of it, inside near the crease that met my thigh. He had the best mouth I'd ever seen and I missed his tongue already. He was fuckhot sexy, as well as intelligent and amusing and he'd stopped drinking alcohol just because I had. He'd been supportive when my ankle was sore, and had sat with me instead of dancing. If I hadn't already met Gog, I'd be in love with Jasper Whitlock. I guess that was my answer.

"Bella, I don't care if you've got your period. It doesn't put me off. It's the opposite, actually - you're a bit of a tomboy and it's an affirmation of your womanhood. It's sexy. But if you don't want to - fuck - we can do other things. But if you're hesitating about being intimate at all - that tells me something," he murmured regretfully. "This other guy, whoever you're thinking of - he's a lucky man."

Jesus.

"He doesn't even like me," I mumbled pathetically.

"Well, he's crazy then," Jasper said. "_I_ like you. Do you want me to have a word with him?"

He grinned and I grinned, and somehow amongst the grinning he got closer, and I got closer, and I whispered, "No, but I'll talk to the girl you like, and I'll tell her what a great kisser you are," and he whispered, "Thanks for the thought, but it might not be the best idea," and the next thing I knew, we were joined again, at the mouth.

"This is now. This is us. Neither of us are cheating on anybody, and neither of us need to feel bad about making each other feel good. There's no-one else in the room, darlin' it's you and me, and tomorrow I'll still feel the same, but you'll be in charge of what happens after tonight," Jasper murmured, his breath at my cheek and my throat as his mouth moved over me.

There was a vortex between us, and we both fell into it, kissing and stroking, lying facing each other until I pushed him and raised myself over him and he eagerly pulled at my hips, positioning me above him, holding me as his pelvis moved upwards, and his mouth slid right off mine as he muttered, "Oh, fuck, Bella, oh _God_." Our bodies synchronized, his hands stroked down my thighs and back up to hold my ass as we humped like teenagers. It was still slow, fuck, it was slow and agonizing and exquisite. When my arms couldn't support me any more and I fell forward propping myself on my elbows, his fingers pulled my zipper down, pushing the sides of my suit apart and cupping me through my bra. His mouth was all over my throat and collarbones. He squeezed my breasts and pushed them together, craning up to kiss the swell of them before reaching back down to grab my hips hard and starting to push much faster. His breath was escaping in soft grunts and moans, my name was uttered amongst them, and by then I was ready to holler the names of all the saints combined. His timing, his rhythm was rendering me insensible - another musician, wouldn't you just expect it? I was momentarily embarrassed to be reaching such a state so soon, but I was out of my fucking mind, and I managed to gasp, "Hold me, fuck me," at him. He tightened his grip, pulling me hard against his cock and panting into my open mouth.

I convulsed as he ground up to me, and he even got that right, keeping me tight against him while I exploded, and he urged, "Beautiful, _yes_, _fuck_, baby...yes."

Damn my period, _damn_. I would have liked him inside me for that. The echoes went on, and still he held me, and I clenched his hips between my thighs, undulating back into him until he growled at me, "Bella, _now_, move!" As I tipped to one side, his hands went to his pants, undoing his jeans and reaching in. They emerged with the Whitlock cock. I fucking nearly came again with no fucking direct stimulation whatsoever when I saw him push his shirt up off his belly, and take himself in both hands. Fuck me fucking dead - I would never be able to look at that double hold of his on the mic again after tonight without having half an orgasm. _Both hands_, people, _both hands_. And though he and I had been moving fast against each other, the strokes he gave himself were half the speed. Past the point of no return, he was savoring the pleasure, and coaxing his orgasm instead of forcing it out. I was mesmerized, both by the rapture on his face, and way he was bringing himself off.

He begged me to kiss him, and I did, bending to his glorious mouth, both of us slack and distracted. I missed the money shot, but I already had something for the spank bank forever.

"Uh, uh," was all he could manage to say, but he reached to pull me against his chest and we lay there for a while, both of us almost stupefied in our post-orgasmic glow.

"Baby, baby - I haven't done that since I was about sixteen," he mumbled eventually, "Kissed a sweet girl and gone too far, and came all over my damn self."

I reached over him for the box of tissues on the bedside cabinet and handed him several, not managing to hold back a smile of pure pleasure.

"Sweetheart, that was the best makeout session I ever had," he added.

"Me too," I answered honestly, because it _had_ been.

He threw the soggy tissues into the wastepaper basket and slid my zipper back up over my breasts, saying, "Those are certifiable national treasures you've got there - can't have 'em gettin' cold."

Then we wriggled together again, kissing sloppily and dazedly, smiling until I guess we both passed out.

And then the edges of my consciousness registered something. A banging sound, and a hesitant voice saying, "Jas?" and another voice, much more assertive, demanding, "_Give me the fucking key_."

A harsh light shone mercilessly right in front of me, through my eyelids and forcing my reluctant eyes open. It was rectangular - I realized it was the doorway, and a figure burst into the middle of it, with another figure hovering behind.

"Well, _fuck_," a voice exclaimed, and I had no idea what was going on. Getting stoned is helluva fun at night, and sometimes you might think you've reached a state of enlightenment and worked out the world's problems, and solved the question of life itself, but somehow the next morning, all you feel is woozy. That was me.

I raised my head, and stared dumbly at the doorway. Deadwood stood there, Tyler behind him. The look on Deadwood's face was something completely indefinable. Okay, I was still fucked up, but I was trying to work it out, and I couldn't. He was silent, taking it in, and I suddenly remembered I was in bed with Jasper. Motherfucker. I turned around, and Jas was asleep, on the other side of the bed. _On top_ of the bed, as I was. We were both fully clothed, and lying about three feet apart, not even touching. Holy crap, Batman. Holy crap.

Edward stared, and I shook my sozzled head. There was nothing, _nothing_ to indicate anything had happened between me and Jax. Nothing. Edward was so obviously trying to get things to add up, and they didn't.

"Bella, you weren't in your room," he finally said, weakly. "I went to wake you and Lauren this morning and you weren't there."

Tyler didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. Jax slept through it all.

"Bella, I need to know where you are. If there's any - room-swapping, or bed-hopping - going on, I need to know," Edward insisted, and he wasn't going off his head, he wasn't going mad, he wasn't yelling or cold or angry. Truth be told, he looked fucking stunned, unless I imagined it. Of all the people to find me in a bed with Jax, it had to be Gog. But it all appeared as innocent as daisy chains and butterflies - me and Jax weren't under the covers, we weren't naked, and we weren't wrapped in each other's arms.

"Bella, I'll take you back to your room. We leave in an hour," Edward said softly, and he actually held his hand out to me. He sounded grateful. I took his hand, and it was warm and strong, and I shouldn't really have left Jasper like that, after what had transpired the night before, but he hadn't woken up, and we all needed showers and packing and shit.

Tyler's face was unreadable, and mine probably was too, and I went with Edward.

"Bella, seriously, I have to know where you are," he repeated, a little desperately, at the door to the room I had with Lauren. "I don't know what the fuck's going on here today, but I_ have_ to know where you are. It doesn't matter what fucking time it is - if you're going to be anywhere else, any time, text me."

He was still holding my hand.

.

.

.

Hands up who wants to play mountain goats and pumas with Jasper Whitlock?


	18. Chapter 18

There is no playlist to this story - I absolutely cannot have music on if I'm trying to write something. If there's music on I listen to it and everything else goes out the window. So, I don't even have a radio. Or a cd player, or an iPod, or mp3 player. I do have six guitars.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

anytime anywhere, really. In fact, please do!

Lauren was waiting to pounce. The second I walked through the door she had me in a headlock, and we both fell onto the nearest bed.

"You didn't come back all night!" she crowed, looking delighted. "You _spent the night_ with the Sexicator!"

"Well, Jesus, Lauren," I choked. "I wasn't going to come and be part of some bestial grossness with you and the Tylerator, was I? Could you let go of my fucking neck?"

She did, and sat looking at me expectantly. "Something happened, something happened," she chanted, in a very smug and annoying way. "You've got that glow, Bella. You can't lie to Auntie Lauren. Auntie Lauren has the distinct feeling her dear friend Bells finally _got off_! It's true, isn't it?"

"You are so crude. Stop looking at me like that. What about you, anyway? Why aren't we talking about you? You're the one who had a guy burst in in the middle of the fucking night because he's so fucking addicted to your sweet fanny action..."

"There wasn't any sweet fanny action, I've got my period," Lauren said, shaking her head. "And anyway, I've told him no. I said I have to talk to James."

"I've heard that one before," I snorted.

Lauren looked serious. "No, really, Bells. I mean it. Yes, I slipped up, and I'm so fucking ashamed of it. But I've got to break up with James, and I'm not going to be running around behind his back any more than I already have. I've even told Tyler I won't see him for at least six weeks after we get back."

"Six weeks? Lolly, your clacker will close over," I warned her. "Vaginas were never meant to be unused."

Lauren guffawed loudly, since we both knew mine had been unused for six months.

"Yeah, so what about _yours_? Did you dust the cobwebs off?" she asked, fixing me with a stern eye.

"No, I've got my period too, sync-sister," I said. "I might have kissed Jas, though. We might have made out."

Lolly looked disbelieving. "_Made out_? Are you telling me that's all you did? Why do you look so _radiant_ this morning then? You got your fucking happies, didn't you?"

"There might have been some humping," I admitted, and she shrieked.

"You rode him like a pony!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, keep it down," I growled, but I was grinning all over my face. "This is all deeply personal, and it's not a matter for public discussion. It was a beautiful thing."

"Yee-haw! I knew it!" she kept on, and she started moving around and putting her things in her bag. There wasn't much for her to pick up because she is a way tidier person than I am.

"You know, you've never fucked anyone on tour and I haven't either, and now we've both gotten us some Monster cock. What's up, do you think?" she mused.

"I didn't get Monster cock, I'm not a fucking slut like you," I started, "And don't try and cheapen what Jasper and I shared by making it sound so dirty."

Lolly snickered and we very kindly stripped the beds so that the hotel staff wouldn't have to do it, and then we played ghosts, which is when you throw sheets over someone and laugh when they get tangled up and fall over.

By the time we were supposed to be at reception, we both still had wet hair from our showers, I'd thrown on the first things I could grab and was wearing an inside-out t-shirt and cut-off jeans with mismatched knee socks, and the Lolster hadn't even combed her hair, she'd just grabbed bunches of it and stucks bands around them. She had four pony-tails.

"You two off to join the circus?" Ron asked, as she and I left our costumes from last night with a porter, giving him money and instructions to return them to the hire place. Everyone else was there, standing around in various stages of not-looking-forward-to-yet-more-hours-in-a-vehicle. Edward was busy signing things at the desk, and talking on the phone at the same time, and Jax came straight to me. He took me by the elbow and pulled me away from the others.

"How are you this morning, baby?" he murmured, in a voice that nearly undid my composure.

"Oh, you know, pretty damn good, _baby_," I murmured back.

"How are those national treasures? I've been deeply regretting that I didn't take the time for proper and due appreciation of them..." he was saying softly, slipping a hand to my waist as Edward strode up behind him.

"Time to go. Moving out. All aboard. Excuse me, Jasper," Deadwood ordered, actually reaching around Jas to take me by the shoulder. "You too, Bella. We can't be late, we're being taken out for early dinner today by the agent in the next town, and I've got a phoner for you to do on the way there this afternoon. It's with college radio and it's live-to-air."

"Edward just said he's got a boner for you to do this afternoon!" Lolly said loudly as our fearless leader frog-marched me out through the door.

"He did say that, I heard him too," I remarked, and the tips of Deadwood's ears turned red, but he didn't comment.

I threw a look over my shoulder at Jas and Lauren was throwing looks over her shoulder too, back at Tyler, and those Monsters stood and watched until our van pulled out of sight.

I couldn't sit in the back seat ever again, so there was a slight tussle as I tried to get into the middle one, where Mike had already set up camp. He wouldn't move, so I was parked awkwardly half on the seat, half on top of him.

"Jesus, Bella, you card-carrying mutant," he whined at me. "You are _not_ sitting here! Fuck!"

"Edward, Mike's being _mean_," I complained. "Ring his mother and tell her to come and get him. It's time he went home. He doesn't know how to play nicely with other children."

"Both of you, cut it out," Edward barked, without looking around. "Bella, back seat."

Lauren was already there smirking, and she knew exactly what my issue was. "Come on, honey. Get your love-itis right here. It's catching," she said, and I huffed down next to her.

We had a four-hour drive, apparently, and the boys starting singing songs from musicals and under cover of the god-awful racket I admitted to Lolly that I'd been holding out on her, and as well as making out with Jasper, I'd kissed Deadwood too. Her head nearly fell off, and I thought I was going to have to catch her eyeballs in my bare hands and shove them back in, they bugged out so hard.

"Your mouth is a _whore_!" she started with, and I had to pull on one of those ponytails hard.

"Jesus, Laurie, now is not the time for your outside voice!" I hissed.

"What the eff happened with Edward?" she asked, a little quieter.

Mumble, mumble. What indeed? Well, crap!

"Well, he's obviously not getting any, and it was that night I hurt my foot, and I might have asked him to kiss me because I felt so self-pitying, and he kissed me back until it registered that it was _me_ and not some dream girl, or somebody that he actually _likes_, and then he ran away. I mean _literally_ - he was jumping over fucking furniture like he had rocket boots on to get out of there. And then he wouldn't even come back and get me, he was so scared and revolted. He sent Sam."

"Hmm," Lauren said. "He kissed you and then ran away, huh? Then you guys argued on the golf-karting day, didn't you? What was that all about?"

I still couldn't tell her the truth - that Edward thought_ I'd_ defiled the very upholstery I was now sitting on. Dear Lauren was so determined she had to go and do the right and honest thing with James, and she already felt bad, and she'd feel even worse if she knew I'd gotten into so much trouble over it.

"Just, you know, fuckery," I mumbled.

In the background, the boys were singing something from Glee. Butchering it.

"Strange, he doesn't seem too mad with you now," she said. "Oh, fuck, I just remembered. He came bashing on the door this morning, like he does, you know, and I opened it, and he could see into the room, and he saw Tyler. We didn't sleep together, Bella, I made him sleep in the other bed. So then Edward went white as a fucking albino cat, asking where you were. Tyler said maybe you were in Jax's room, and I thought Edward was going to go epileptic. He went charging off like the fucking Light Brigade to find you."

"Yeah, well, his job is to harass Bella Swan, isn't it?" I pointed out. "If I was missing or lost, he'd have fucking nothing to do all day."

"I guess," she said, vaguely. "But, babes, out of him and Jas, who's the best kisser?"

Shit. It depends what you're after. They'd both been hot and wet - and one of them had seen it through and one hadn't. Actually, one hadn't been better than the other - I'd just felt differently about them. But shit, did what _I_ felt even matter? I needed some common sense to help me out, but common sense was not prevailing. I didn't know what day it was.

And three hours into the drive my phone whistled with the whalesong I had selected as my message notifier, and the caller ID read Jasper. Allowing myself a private smile, I opened it, wondering what he'd have to say.

"_Thinking_," was the whole message. I thought he must have been distracted and hit send before he'd finished writing, and I wondered whether to reply or wait.

A minute later, the whales piped up again.

"_Of_."

Thinking of...? Me, obviously. I'm thinking of you too, actually.

A minute later, "_Your_."

God, he was crap at this. He'd meant to put "thinking of you," and the poor boy couldn't get his thumb to work.

The whales sang again.

"Tell fucking Free Willy to shut up," Mike scowled, but I didn't take any notice. Jasper had sent, "_Kiss_."

Ooh.

Well, that was pretty fucking romantic, really. I looked out of the window without seeing a thing, and thought of _his_ kiss. Slippery, warm, sure, inviting, promising, lots of tongue, very, very arousing, and...

Free Willy wasn't finished. "_Breasts_."

Excuse me while I cream my pants. He said _what_?

"Bella, please put your phone onto silent," Edward ordered from the driver's seat.

"Who the fuck keeps setting Flipper off?" Mike demanded.

I managed to mumble, "It's Lauren, we're playing a game," and bit my lip, frantically fiddling with my phone and trying to remember how to turn the sound off.

"_Thighs_," came through. Fuck me. I mean, seriously, _fuck me_. Right now. Would Edward turn the van around and drive me straight back to find the Monsters?

"_Want_."

Christ. I want, too. I bit on my lip and cradled my phone, willing the next message to arrive.

"_You_."

Well, I knew Jasper was a sexy motherfucking beast, but this was amazing. Who knew he could seduce me over the fucking phone, one word at a time? I clenched my legs together tight, and closed my eyes tighter, remembering his tongue and his hands, and the feel of his cock underneath me as we -

"_In_."

It was pretty much every thirty seconds the messages were coming in. I started to count.

"_My_."

Oh, you want me in your what, Jax? Arms? Room? Bed? All of those were very good ideas.

"_Mouth_."

Sweet baby Jesus.

I groaned aloud, and I could feel heat in my cheeks. And not only my fucking cheeks.

Lauren had noticed by now, and asked, "Hey, Bella-boo - who's talking to you?"

Lucky she'd said it quietly, because I did _not_ want anyone else to know.

I mouthed, "Jasper" back at her, and she flickered a questioning look at me.

"What's he saying?" she whispered.

"There is no fucking way I am going to tell you." I was discreetly panting.

"He's sexting you?" she hissed, with great excitement.

I needed a restroom stop so I could go into a cubicle and beat off. I'd never, ever done the deed in a cubicle before, but there was always a first time. Although there was probably a pretty good chance that it wouldn't work because I'd be too worried about being overhead, and too uncomfortable, and too distracted by other people's toilet noise, and I'd end up even worse off than I already was. Hot and extremely fucking bothered.

Then Jasper gave up on the single words and sent a whole sentence.

"_I will come for you_."

And with that simple loaded statement I had reached the limit of my endurance. Last night Jax, breath heaving into my mouth, hands on himself, had done exactly that.

"Edward, could we stop at the next place?" I asked unsteadily, and he glanced at me through the mirror.

"We're just about to stop, Bella. It's nearly time for your interview, and the guy will be calling any minute. Are you all right?"

There was a classic truckstop-style diner on the side of the road and Edward pulled in there, and we all staggered out the van, stiff-legged after sitting still for three hours.

"Bella, are you all right?" Edward asked again, coming over to me. Jax's messages seemed to have stopped, but I was feeling shaky and bordering on hyper-ventilating. I didn't want to talk to some random guy on the phone about the band and the music, I wanted to run for miles back down the road screaming, and end up in the FLMs' tour bus.

"You're flushed," Edward said, eyes narrowed. Tell me about it, Einstein.

"I'm just not feeling myself," I mumbled, which was, unfortunately, true.

He stood there, frowning, and I stood there, aching, and his phone rang.

"Is that the interview guy? Could Mike take this one?" I asked, and Edward nodded.

"Sure, Bella, get a drink of water, this'll only take about ten minutes and then we'll keep going, do you need to sit down? What do you want? I'll be back in a sec. I hope you're not coming down with something."

"I'll be fine."

He went off to Mike and sorted the whole interview thing and Mike's perfectly okay in interviews, really, since he's way more sensible than I am. He tends to take them seriously and give really good, thoughtful answers, while I just say whatever comes to mind, like announcing that we had all originally met at water ballet school, and the inspiration for the songs came from messages I got from my grandmother's cat.

The rest of the drive passed with no incidence, no more messages, just me and my filthy mental scenarios playing out against the backdrop of American wasteland, followed by American city fringes. We checked in to the hotel and went to meet the agent guy at the restaurant, and his name was Peter and I got the honor of sitting next to him.

"I'm your number one fan," he said, and that was instant doom, for fuck's sake. Anyone who declared themselves a big fan earned immediate loser status, which could never be revoked. And then, it turned out, he'd listened to the on-air interview with Mike.

"I was so sorry to hear you weren't feeling well," he said. "Are you going to be all right for the show?"

"Yes, of course. I'm just starting to get tired on this tour. There've been a lot of late nights," I told him.

"Oh, you rock stars and your partying," he said, nodding like he knew all about it. But if he was an agent, it occured to me I couldn't make it sound like my band would be a liability to book due to the singer not being able to handle being on the road.

"_I_ don't party," I said. "I go straight back to the hotel and go to bed. I don't even drink. I'm very careful. There's no sex or drugs mixed with the rock and roll for me."

Everyone else was listening in, and looking like they were about to engage in some collective scoffing, but my ridiculous claims passed without comment, except for Peter echoing, "No sex?" and looking faintly disappointed.

"No. My faith forbids it. I'm very church-going."

Dickhead Mike started to cough, and I didn't really blame him. I'd never set foot in church in my life.

"I do all the flower-arranging for my chapel, so as well as attending services I spend a lot of time on the church premises helping out," I went on. I really needed to shut up, before I said something appallingly stupid and stuck my big fat foot right in my mouth, and luckily Edward seemed to know he'd better step up to the plate.

"Peter, thanks for taking us out this evening, we've all had a great time and it's nice to meet you, but I'd better get these kids back to their hotel to get ready for tonight. We'll see you at the venue," he said, and he shook Peter's hand and got us out.

"Flower-arranging?" he smirked to me. "Church? I never knew you were so pious."

And I only had my big mouth to thank when we got to the venue an hour before we were due to perform, and settled ourselves in the band room to write out set lists, and someone from the bar turned up with a bouquet of flowers, and a card. Addressed to me. The card said, "To Bella, the flower-girl, regards, Peter.

There was knock on the door immediately afterwards, and more flowers were delivered. Then more.

"Christ, what is this, some kind of floriade?" Sam said as he was tuning the guitars. The flowers kept arriving.

By the time the Monsters turned up, there were a dozen bouquets, all different, all scented, all spectacular, all for me. There wasn't an inch of fucking space left on the counter top, and half the bunches were sitting on the floor.

"Someone's got a big crush on a lucky girl," Mike announced to the room in general. "They're all for Bella."

Jax gave me an enquiring look, and came and stood next to me, and he was wearing tight black jeans, and a tight black shirt and he sure looked good enough to fucking eat. I stood up to greet him, just as Edward came into the room.

"Bella," Jax murmured in that honey-toned, melting voice of his, and then he frowned suddenly, turned away and sneezed. He sneezed again, and Edward came over to us quickly.

"Jasper, do you have a cold?" he asked.

Jax shook his head. "Hay fever," he said, sneezing again. He moved to a table where there was a box of tissues, and blew his nose.

"Looks like a cold to me," Edward insisted smoothly. "I'm very sorry, Jasper, but I'm going to have to find you somewhere else to be. With colds being so contagious, it's not advisable for you to be in the same room as Bella. She's unwell and we can't risk her being exposed to a virus when her immune system is already compromised."

"You're not well, baby?" Jax asked me in concern. He'd been calling me baby for ages, but Edward's jaw tightened at it nonetheless.

"I got a little feverish in the van today," I answered, barely keeping a straight face, and those beautiful, fine eyes of Jasper's cleared, and even twinkled as he understood me. His lips parted in a grin that could have stripped me naked if we were alone.

"Is there anything I can do?" he said, leaning closer, voice husky, but he had to step away again to sneeze.

"You can avoid breathing on her. Come on, Jasper. The less you're around Bella, the better," Deadwood stated firmly, and Jax shrugged, following my bossy TM through the door, and sneezing all the way.

I was pretty mad, because Jax did not have a fucking cold. Deadwood was my inhibitor all right. Of course he would find a way to make me fucking pay for having found me in Jax's room this morning. Control fucking freak that he was, it must have made him go batshit to think that somebody had done something out of line, and he couldn't tick all the boxes on his precious fucking spreadsheet or schedule or whatever it was that he adhered so closely to. Oh, naughty Bella wasn't in the right place at the right time. The reprimand hadn't come this morning, but I was getting my smack on the hand now. Still, poor Jax couldn't stay in this room and remain breathing, from the look of things.

Rock o'clock came upon us as I was contemplating going to look for Jax, and I reluctantly headed on out to the stage. Tonight I was wearing a tennis dress, with opaque black tights and my oxblood docs. Yeah. I ran out on stage and shouted, "Greetings, earthlings!" and I jumped around, and it all went okay, but I didn't really get into the headspace. I spent half the set thinking imagine being a politician, or the Queen of England or something, and having to be in the public eye all the fucking time when sometimes you just don't feel like it. Imagine being a rock star. What a load of crap.

It was a bit harder to stand out front to watch the Monsters these days, what with stupid people wanting to talk to me and interrupt my viewing pleasure, but stand out the front I had to do, because I wanted to see the Jaxinator hold his mic with two hands. After I'd seen that I had to go and be by myself in a cubicle for a while. As I had suspected, it made matters worse. I was not in a good mood when I got backstage.

I went looking for Jax and couldn't find him. I went back to our florist shop of a band room, and stood around twitching, wanting to get back to the hotel.

"Finally, you appear. What have you been doing? No, spare me the boring details. Are we going?" I snapped to Edward when he walked in.

"What do you want to do with these flowers, Bella?" he asked, overlooking my rudeness. "Am I putting them in the van?"

What would anyone do with a millionty roses? "There's no point taking them with us," I said. "Could you arrange for them to be delivered to a hospital, or nursing home so that someone can appreciate them?"

Edward turned to me, an eyebrow raised. "Certainly. You can really be quite nice, sometimes," he commented.

Unlike you, you mean.

But he hadn't finished with me yet.

We got back to the hotel and dispersed, but Edward took my arm as I tried to head off after Lauren.

"Bella, I've been very clear on what I expect from all of you, with regards to your whereabouts. Last night you broke a cardinal rule, which is that I have to know where you are at all times. If you're wandering around hotels in the dead of night, anything can happen. Already on this tour you've nearly drowned. I told you there'd be a consequence if you misbehaved again. Tonight you will be sharing with me, so that I don't have to worry about you."

I gasped. "You are fucking joking! That's not even funny, but you're fucking joking, right?" I spluttered.

"I assure you I'm not. I'll get your bag, and you can come with me."

He was the world's biggest fucking cock-blocker. I was planning on going to Jax's room tonight, no question about it, once I'd texted him and invited myself, and cleared things with Lauren, and hopefully Jasper would sort out what to do with Tyler so that he and I could be deliciously alone.

"You are dreaming! And you are seriously pissing me off! _And_ you are out of your mind! I am calling security! I'm calling the fucking asshole task force to come arrest you! You are deranged!"

None of it did any good, of course. Next thing I knew, we were in a room together, me and fucking Deadwood, the bane of my life.

"Who else was going to be in this room? Who have you inflicted on Lauren?" I demanded.

"I was with Sam. But I've booked an extra room, so don't worry, Lauren will be fine. She doesn't have to share."

"Jesus, Edward. You are in so much trouble. I'm fucking ringing Carlisle right now this instant," I declared hotly, finding Carlisle on the speed dial. It was two am.

My actual manager, as opposed to my faux manager, answered the phone sounding sleepy. I let fly, listing all his son's offences, and finished with the latest, and supreme one.

"Is that all for tonight, Bella?" Carlisle yawned. "I'm sure Edward knows what he's doing. Goodnight."

"You are a _cocksucker_!" I fumed at Deadwood.

"Actually, no," he said. "Would you like to use the bathroom first?"

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Oh, criminey, fanfic have changed the way things look on the author's pages. I hate that. I have to figure everything out all over again. Guys, IF IT AIN'T BROKE...

And please, _Love me love me, say that you love me,_ me quoting The Cardigans to you...


	19. Chapter 19

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

**Dix-neuf!**

Lauren and I sometimes slept in pajamas but we were usually too drunk to bother, and just went to bed in panties and t-shirts, and sometimes not even that. But, fuck, there was no way on god's green earth I was prepared to appear in front of the dark overbearing lord in anything other than a neck-to-wrist-to-ankle burqa. Of course, I had nothing approaching that sort of nightwear. I had to settle for a long-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants.

In the bathroom I huffed around angrily, pulling my hair off my face before getting in the shower and scrubbing all remnants of makeup away. Underneath the warm and luxuriant stream of water, I tried to muddle through my thoughts.

First, where the fuck did Deadwood get off, thinking he could fucking order me around to the extent of telling me where I could sleep? And what was the nepotistic Cullen conspiracy going on with his father? Fuck, I was going to tear _strips_ off Cullen Senior next time I saw him.

"_I'm sure Edward knows what he's doing._" Quote, Cullen senior.

_"I am equally sure he _doesn't_, dear Carlisle, and out of you and me, one of us is wrong_. _And it's you_." Quote, Bella Swan.

And then, okay, shit. Jasper, Jaxinator, Sexinator, Jax. The best fucking kisser in the world. The best fuck I ever didn't have. He might even right now be knocking on the door of Lauren's room looking for me, or he might be rolling up a scoobie, and waiting for me to turn up to his room, and knock on _his_ door. Oh, fickle finger of fate, here I was stuck sharing with - hang on a minute - the _other_ best fucking kisser in the world. I'd kissed a few people, and I knew enough to know that both Jax and Edweird had been miles head of anybody else. Had the two of them been giving each other lessons?

Ooh, Bella, that is a very fucking naughty little stray thought! Wrong way - go back! That will lead to no good whatsoever.

And actually, they were totally different. Jax's mouth was teasing and sure, Edward's was kind of intense. Jax's was pure sex, just _fucking_ lazy, liquid pure sex, whereas Edward's was - what? Exploratory, tender, then passionate, and in some immeasureable kind of way, more than just physical. I couldn't really explain that to myself, because it defied explanation, but he didn't kiss like he expected I'd be naked underneath him within minutes. It hadn't been like that. He kissed like - oh, I don't know what the feck he kissed like. I was totally overthinking it. He kissed like he didn't just want sex, he wanted _me_.

I got out of the shower and took a good look at myself in the mirror. Lauren was right - my mouth was a whore, and not just my mouth. There in the glass looking back at me was a girl who'd made several moves on a guy who steadfastly refused to accept the invitation, and then two days after the most recent attempt on his seemingly unassailable virtue, she'd jumped on top of someone else. What the fuck was I playing at?

Before the night in Jasper's room, I'd wanted Gog, and I'd wanted him bad. Before the night in Jasper's room, if I'd had the chance to be in a bedroom with Gog I would have barricaded the door, nailed planks over the windows, unplugged the phone, and given that man all the Swan he coud take. But then the epic humping with Jax had taken place - and it had in no way been describable as _DRY_ - for either of us. God, I kind of had the vaguest inkling of how Lauren had felt when she'd been confused over James and Tyler, and how she'd felt when she got carried away and cheated. I wasn't cheating on anybody, but I felt like I was being unfaithful to two people. And probably even to myself.

If I stripped it all back to the bare bones, I lusted after Jasper, and admired him, and got on really well with him, plain and simple. But my feelings about Gog were more complex and subtle, and ungraspable. I absolutely loved that he took charge, no matter how irritated I was by it. I loved that he had the nerve and that he was so fucking _strong_. And I loved the way I felt the few times he'd been relaxed enough to let me joke around with him. He'd let me see a sense of humor and a very sharp mind. And I was fucking _feeding_ off the tension between him and me. I didn't understand it, but it did something to me - like a high without chemicals.

But all of this was fucking irrelevant anyway, because he thought I was someone with no self-discipline, who drank too much and licked girls' necks, jumped naked into hotel swimming pools way after midnight, fucked boys in vans, and was clueless, loud and delinquent. In other words an irresponsible, self-indulgent brat with a big mouth who would let the whole operation down unless I was in a strait-jacket with my jaw wired shut.

So this was the action he'd taken. Locking me up, stealing my fucking liberty, over-riding my right to be in my own room, with my lovely Lola...

I had calmed down back there for a second or two, but I emerged irate - once more into the fray.

Deadwood was on his bed with his laptop balanced on his knees attending to some dreary business or playing fucking Texas Hold'em, I sure as hell didn't know or care, and he looked up and saw me. His expression went from calm to inscrutable.

"Bathroom's free," I declared unnecessarily.

He just nodded, and kept tap-tapping. I gave him my best glare, or my worst, really, and he didn't look up. The silence and non-eye contact stretched out until I'd had enough.

In lieu of saying something inflammatory, I flounced onto my bed and climbed in with my back to him, pulling the covers up to my neck. Then I thought I'd check my phone, just in case Jax had sent any more one-word erotica. There actually was a message from him.

"Babe, I'm sick. I can't see you. I'm SO SORRY, J."

_Sick_? Did he need me? Edward had shut himself in the bathroom by then, and I contemplated running out into the long dark night of the corridor to find my long tall Texan, but I knew my life wouldn't be worth living if I left the room. It just wouldn't.

I lamely sent back, "Sleep well, and I hope you feel better tomorrow," and wondered quite know how things had been turned belly-up in a matter of a few weeks. Before that day when I'd missed the flight for the stupid festival, everything had been on track - me and my trail of mayhem and disorder, wreaking drunken havoc across the land, picking arguments for the hell of it, living for the night-times when I could step out into the void and fill it with my moods and my yelling.

And then Gog had turned up.

My equilibrium, always hovering on the thin line between the devil and the deep blue sea, took a plunge. After the initial antipathy, set off by my wanting him ridiculously at first sight and then wanting him even more once he wouldn't kowtow to me, I went for him. Goddamn - his response had been contradictory! That refusal to kiss me, although he held me on his lap until I lost feeling in my ass! Someone explain it to me please, because I'm floundering.

Then the tour started and he turned into the fucking Iceman - distant, impatient, magisterial and cheerless.

And there was Jax, who, under normal circumstances, was just my type. Like, really, _really_. The more I got to know him the more I thought so.

And please - the last boyfriend I'd had had been months ago. I was so ripe and ready.

But with Jasper, something had stopped me. When I suspected he was flirting, I backed off. When I _knew_ he was flirting, I fled. And when he and I found ourselves cuddling and alone on a bed, I just couldn't take that step, and open up to him. Couldn't just say yes. The menstrual aspect had been legitimate, but it had also been a delaying tactic while I processed my denial. Ultimately it wasn't the underlying reason. The underlying, overarching reason I couldn't jump into an involvement, or even a one-time thing with Jasper, was the Gog aspect. I couldn't get jiggy with Jax if there was the slightest, most infinitesimal chance with Gog.

And what a waste of restraint! Jasper and I had compatibility going on on various levels. Humor, taste, occupation - and _Lord_, don't forget the physical! Why on earth would I be wanting to turn down the first guy I'd seriously lusted after in months for someone who thought I was annoying?

Okay, Jasper wasn't the first guy I'd lusted after in months, Gog was. Back to _Gog_ again! I kept thinking in circles - every train led me back to the station where I wanted to get on, and _get off_. But he was as forbidding as a fucking brick wall. Shuddup your face, Bella. This is all too, too hard.

While I was gloomily contemplating the extent of my turmoil, Edward came out of the bathroom wearing a grey t-shirt and check flannel pants. The fucking t-shirt had damp spots on it where he hadn't dried himself properly. How can it be that he gets to walk around looking like that? If _I_ was wearing a wet t-shirt I'd probably get all kinds of criticism. But Edward, didn't your mother ever tell you if you wear damp clothes you could get a chill? I could rub you down, I mean dry you off, if you'd like that. Towels can be rough, though. I could lick those drops of water away one by one until they were all gone. I could look after you in ways your mother never did.

But stop, Bella.

Even slightly pink, and still damp, and with his hair sticking out every which way, he was incomparably gorgeous.

I went freak again. I thought he should just get on over and hop into my bed, never mind his. I could always say that I didn't prefer right or left, I liked to be in the middle, and if he did too we could share. I wouldn't be fussy as to who was on top. And clearly, he was too tired to argue. I had to school my features into impassivity very, very quickly when he glanced over.

"You ready for lights out? Or did you want to read or watch TV or something?" he asked.

I shrugged eloquently. Mustn't actually answer that question, due to the possibility of saying something true but regrettable.

"I have to set the alarm for eight, but I'll be as quiet as I can in the morning," he said, getting into his bed.

"_Eight_? It's three o'clock now! What would you set the alarm so fucking early for?"

He sighed.

"Well, when I wake up I check online to see what's been posted about the gig the night before, on Twitter and various other social networking sites, I do a bit of accounting, working out the float for the day, and how much of the previous night's takings I need to deposit in the bank account, and I call Carlisle and give him a rundown on what's been happening. He lets me know if you have interviews or photos or instores or live-to-airs or anything like that to do. Then by around ten, agents and promotors and venues have their offices open and I ring ahead to check pre-sales and how much promo has been done, and I verify the load-in and soundcheck arrangements and performance times, and confirm that the riders and specs have been sent through. And then I meet with Sam and Erik and we check the gear, and plot our route for the drive, and I liaise with the Monsters' management to make sure everything's running smoothly at their end..." He went on and on, and my mouth dropped open.

"Jesus, Edward, you do all that in the morning? How much sleep are you getting at night?" I asked faintly.

"Oh, five hours or so, on average," he replied.

I had no idea. I didn't know he had to work that hard. All that administration stuff, and then all the driving, and then all the stuff he had to do at shows - I honestly hadn't known being a tour manager was such fucking hard work. I felt really, completely stupid. All I did was sleep as long as I could, sit in the van for hours, eat, shop, spend between forty minutes and an hour jumping around on stage, then party, then sleep as long as I could. What a fucking wanker. Edward was working his ass off, and I had been totally taking him for granted, losing patience with him when he was tired, and getting pissed off when he was just trying to do his best with a bunch of fucking upstart juveniles who had a way easier life than they appreciated.

"You'd better nod off two hours ago," I said.

"That would help matters."

He looked so shattered I felt really bad for him.

"Hey, about a scalp massage?" I offered. "I'm really good at it, and it's soothing, and you'll feel relaxed afterwards."

I wanted to do something nice for him, with him looking like he'd accrued a sleep debt of several days, and with knowing he only had a few hours to go before he started working again. He didn't seem too keen, but he was so far past the point of resisting he'd probably have agreed to anything.

"Um, how are we going to work this?" I asked, since if I just sat behind him he'd be too tall. "I know - you sit on the floor."

He complied wearily, and I sat on the bed behind him, with his body between my legs. He leaned his head back against the edge of the bed and I got to work.

I was really, really good at this, because I did it to Lauren all the time. I'd watched some Indian head massage tutorials on you tube, along with shiatsu and a bit of acupressure, and I'd combined them all for my own special scalp extravaganza, which Lolly thought I could earn my living doing once I wasn't a rock star anymore.

Gog's hair was unruly and soft and lovely, and seemed to stand up all on its own. I played with it gently at first, swirling it around delicately in my fingers for several minutes until I reached through to his actual skin and started dragging my fingertips lightly through the strands and across his scalp, tracing lines and patterns that made his hair reach for the sky even more crazily than normal. Against the inside of my knees his shoulders were very warm and firm, and the whole experience was quite heady. I even shut my eyes. At first I reckoned about ten minutes would be enough, but I was enjoying touching him so much that I could have done it until kingdom come.

As I realized that, I noticed his head had slumped to one side, and then he straightened it with a jerk.

"Oh, God, Bella," he murmured, and I looked down to see that the skin of his arms was covered in goosebumps.

I gave Gog goosebumps.

He crawled away from me and stood up, with a mumbled, "Well, thanks for that, Christ, I actually fell asleep. I'd better get to bed now before I fall over," and I scooted away, back to my own bed, a little shocked.

I'd had a kind of epiphany when I'd had my hands on him. It had felt really good, but more than that, it had felt _right_. Touching Jax felt really fucking fantastic, but it felt like I wanted to kiss him behind the bikesheds or something. It was very, very different.

So help. Like,_ help_.

I lay down and curled up on my side, and Edward turned the lights out, and that was it.

But that wasn't it. Sometime during the night I woke, panting and restless, and trying to gather myself. I felt panicked, and the dream was so close, so real I was still half-submerged in it.

It had started off as something pleasant, but had descended into darkness. I had dreamed I was in the woods, where I'd come from, in Washington state. They go for fucking miles, dark and damp, and if you're anything like me, they're full of imaginary demons and monsters. In my dream I'd been walking there with Edward, holding hands and contemplative and trusting, but he'd somehow disappeared and left me alone in the cold, surrounded by noises and shadows. I tried to run in the direction I thought he'd gone, but there was tangled undergrowth in my way preventing my progress. I couldn't see a thing. Stumbling and tripping, I was cutting myself and hurting myself, and still I ran, desperate and terrified, crying his name. No-one answered and no-one came to help me. Finally I'd collapsed in a heap of shivering exhaustion, bitterly alone and bitterly frightened. I couldn't understand why Edward had left me when it was his job to look after me.

And then in my dream, warm arms came around me, holding me against a solid chest. A voice whispered and soothed me as I was carried to safety. In my dream it was gentle Sam, my stalwart, my giant, who bore me limp and almost broken, from the woods.

But Sam wasn't in the room. There were arms around me, and there was a muffled voice reassuring me. Holy shit, I was lying in a hotel bed, and curled up around me outside the covers, was my tormentor. He hadn't abandoned me at all. He was right there.

Edward.

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Should I offer enticements? I'd love more than two or three reviews per chapter...


	20. Chapter 20

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

here, there and everywhere

**Twenty**

I barely reached the surface of wakefulness really, just nudged at it enough to know myself safe, secure and contented. The fear receded with the weight of Edward's arm over me, and with the faint stirring of his breath in my hair as he and I both drifted back to sleep.

I woke alone. No arm across my shoulder, no warmth pressed against my back; just me, and when I had rolled over and cleared sleep-groggy eyes, I was not only alone in the bed, but alone in the room. What the hell time was it? Where was that fucking standard-issue boring-ass clock again? Why did some hotels have them in the bedside radio, and some on the other side of the room? Why wasn't this shit regulated?

I've got a Buffy watch, because Buffy rules, and according to Buffy it was 10.45. Jesus, Slayer, get back in your envelope and shut the be-jesus up. That's fifteen minutes short of eight hours, and nobody can expect to thrive on eight hours sleep a night. Any reasonable person would go insane, and no-one has ever called me reasonable.

Elphonso the Great was nowhere to be seen, but remembering his checklist of duties from last night, that was no surprise. He had a hell of a lot of stuff to do in the mornings. I thought, maybe I should be more involved with this whole online thing, and that would help him out. My internet aversion, not to mention disability, was the source of great hilarity to my techno-freak bandmates, but hey, I could learn to twit, probably. I could even twitbook, with one or two tutorials. Maybe I should turn over a new leaf, put away the snark and the bitch and the kid with the monstrous ODD, and actually be nicer to Elphie and do myself and my career a favor, at the same time? What about that?

And really, I was getting a bit over bad Bella. Over the looks everyone gave me, and the disapproval, and the feeling that I was some errant little junior school kid. And I was really, really fucking sobered to find out that Edward was working 500-hour days just to keep this ship afloat and I hadn't known what a difficult job the whole thing was. I was acting like a chimp on amphetamines all day and night and I had honestly thought he just walked around with bits of paper in his hand and barked like a police dog.

So I whisked through the whole showering and dressing and packing routine with an alacrity that would have had dear Lolz summoning a priest for last rites because of deranged mania. Out I trotted to the van, ready and happy ahead of time and filled with joys of wanting to convey my new spirit of goodwill to the person who needed it most. I hopped in next to Gog, and put on my best smile.

"Sleep well?" I asked, as the others filed in. Let's not mention I know you were in my fucking bed last night, Gog, and then fled before you had to face me. Let's keep quiet about the arms around me and the murmuring and the whole-body tucking and curving into my back, fitting me like a glove business. I decided I would play it cool and steer well clear of the whole nightmare and sleep-hugging. _For now_.

"Yes, thank you," he said. I could feel Lolly burning holes in my shoulder blades with Question-Vision, but I could talk to her later.

"Get all your stuff done this morning?" I asked Deadwood.

"Pretty much," he answered.

Well, golly, I was pleased to hear that. And gosh, I was in a good mood.

"I'm so glad. Now for more important matters - how's your bromance with Mike going? Got past first base yet?" Really, you can only put the snark aside for a certain amount of time. Taking the piss has to come to the fore sooner or later.

Edward snorted, which he hadn't done with me for days.

"No."

"Well, I can't think why not because I've seen graffiti all over the place that says Mike Newton puts out."

He snorted again. "I really wouldn't know whether he does or not," he said, and this was nice, it was Deadwood relaxing the tiniest bit. I liked it.

"It's common knowledge that he does. Ask anyone," I continued. We were at a set of traffic lights, and I turned around to see Mike looking vacantly out of the window. With his finger up his nose.

"Now come on, Edward you've got to want to be tapping that - or you wouldn't be human," I said.

Elphie laughed outright.

"And about all that epic time-wasting you mentioned on networking sites..." I began, and he turned from watching the road ahead to look at me.

"Before you go any further, you do realize, I'm sure, that your popularity is viral?" he replied. "Have you noticed more and more people are coming to shows? Why do you think that is?"

"Uh, because word gets around?" I said.

"And how is word getting around?"

Oh, okay, Mr fucking party-smants. "Telephone?" I asked, and he snorted again.

"Anyway, you know Ed, I was thinking, could I borrow your lap-top? I could go on those networking sites and communicate with the fans, you know, be pro-active and reactive, and interactive and all that," I offered.

He looked surprised, but he shrugged. "Well, not right now, but at the next stop I'll get it out of the back and you can write up some recounts of gigs, or some sort of tour diary, if you like," he answered.

"Okay, good. That's settled. I'll do a flog - is that what it's called?"

"I think you mean blog."

"Whatever. Who's going to get fussy about consonants?" I asked. And then our lovely chat was interrupted by Lauren howling "Hazchem!" from the back, which is what we shout when one of the boys have farted.

Ron yelled, "She who smelt it dealt it!"

Lauren yelled back, "He who denied it supplied it!" and normally I would have been yelling too, right along with them, but not today. Today I was sitting up the front with Edward.

"Aren't they juvenile?" I asked him.

"Puerile," he nodded.

"Infantile," I said.

"Facile," he agreed.

"Imbecile?" I suggested.

"Pre-senile?" he queried, and we were both suddenly grinning. He was tuned right in.

"Not to mention asinine," I started up.

"Porcine."

"Bovine."

"Ninety-nine?"

"Clementine?"

"Diamond mine?"

We were in a private little world, with the toxic fumes circulating behind us.

"Suffocating back here! Dying! Apparate the oxygen masks," Ben called, and our little rhyming game was interrupted, as Edward flicked the switch that unlocked the windows, but it felt like something had changed. He had enjoyed himself with me for a few seconds. That marked quite a shift in the usual dynamic of him finding me as irritating as batshit as long as I was awake, and then apparently, worthy of tenderness and whispered comfort when he thought I was asleep. Unless of course, I'd dreamed the whole thing.

I was feeling so positive I said, "Not long to go now. Of course we'll still be seeing your cheery, smiley self about the place once the tour's over, won't we?"

And just like that, his smile disappeared. He cleared his throat.

"No, Bella," he said, lightly. "You won't be seeing me for a while."

And just like that my good mood rolled off me like a big wave. I felt it go. One second I was warm, the next, struck by coldness. It wasn't exactly emanating from him, but it was caused by him. Fuck, he was contrary! Every time I thought things were looking positive and he might not completely hate me, he managed to reconfirm his enmity. Fuck! I was floundering like a fucking fish out of water.

He cleared his throat again, and I thought he had something else to say, but he addressed everyone.

"Swan Alliance, tomorrow we get home, as you all know, and tomorrow night's show is being recorded. And the other big news is that you've been invited to appear on the Latebirds show tomorrow afternoon. _Live tv_, kids, but take heed - you've got a 1pm call at the studio. We'll get up early tomorrow, and check out at 9 am. We're wrapping up straight after you come offstage tonight, no hanging round to watch the Monsters, I want you little sleepyheads all in bed by midnight, because I'm waking you all at 8. Any questions?"

"What time's 8?" Lauren asked, weakly. "That's close to midday, right?"

"No, Lauren, it's later than most people get up. And appearing on this show will be great exposure, it's a great opportunity, the presenter has stated publicly that he's a big fan, and I'll get you all there if I have to throw iced water on you," Edward said. "Don't worry about a thing."

Fuck, I felt like he'd already thrown the iced water, right at me. Our little episode of camaraderie had vanished. I needed to swap seats with someone, or more accurately, I thought I might just climb under a seat for the rest of the drive.

Somebody sang out for a toilet stop, and I leapt out of that front passenger seat with a turn of speed that would have surprised the hell out of my high school sports coach, and I slipped gratefully back where I belonged, with dear Lolly, who didn't confuse or hurt me.

"Oh, hello, do I know you from somewhere?" she asked with faux surprise. "Oh, now I remember, you're the girl I've been sharing a room with every night, along with divulging all my secrets and dreams and every intimate detail of my life. And last night you slept with our tour manager. How did that go?"

"Lauren Mallory! _Jesus!_ I did not fucking sleep with our tour manager!" I said urgently, although technically, that was a lie. Technically, last night I _did_ sleep with the tour manager.

"Oh, so if you weren't sleeping, what were you doing? Details, please," she demanded, sotto voce, and poked me very hard in the ribs.

I rolled my eyes and replied just as quietly, "There aren't any. We barely even spoke. I crashed, and he crashed. _In separate beds_."

I would tell her what had happened just as soon as we got some privacy - not here. I would tell her what a fucking freak Deadwood was, comforting me and holding me and then pretending it hadn't happened. Then laughing with me like we were our own special world and had our own special brand of funny. Then dashing the whole thing to pieces with yet another of his inexplicable swings against me just when we were getting along so well.

"He takes his job of looking after me - and all of us - very seriously, and beyond that, he doesn't even like me. He's just said he's not going to hang around after the tour's finished."

Lolita frowned, and sighed. "I don't know Bells, it doesn't add up. What were his exact words?"

"His exact words were, "You won't be seeing me for a while". He's fucking planning to leave town, or something, just to get away from me."

"Mmm," Lolly said, no doubt trying to find a positive spin to put on things so they didn't sound so totally fucked, when my phone went.

After all the recent orca complaints I'd set it to ring with the sound of a plane taking off if Jasper called, and right then it roared like a jumbo jet. Uh-oh.

"Hi, Mom," I said, and Jax's sexy, lovely voice laughed.

"This is _definitely_ not your mother," he purred, and he still sounded a little congested. If anything, his already deep voice was huskier.

"Yes, I'm eating lots of vegetables," I answered, thinking I really needed to speak to him privately.

"Babe, I'm sorry about last night. Those flowers were nearly the death of me," he said. "I couldn't stop sneezing and I was in no state to be - _entertaining_ - a visitor."

Well, I'd been very sorry too initially, but then I'd had a change of heart, capricious bitch that I am.

"No, it's not all fast food. And I'm drinking gallons of water," I said. I really, _really_ needed to speak to him.

"Who's there, babe? Why don't you want anyone to know you're talking to me?" Jasper asked.

"Oh, we're all here. Me and the hundred monkeys lonely hearts club circus," I said. "And our ringmaster, the celebrated Eduoard the Magnificent."

Up front in the driver's seat, Deadwood actually smirked.

"You know don't have to be lonely when I'm around, Bella," Jasper replied, and I hunched down into the seat a little, phone to my cheek.

"Can I talk to you later?" I whispered.

"Sure you can, babe, please do," he responded, and I pressed "end call" and sat there, watching the road ahead as our van devoured it. A few hours ago, I'd reached a decision, and it wasn't Jasper. However, I couldn't evade the feeling that Edward had reached a decision too. He might have been there for me when I was distressed and half-asleep, but he certainly hadn't been there for ongoing support in the morning, and despite our friendly sharing of wisecracks just now, he hadn't mentioned last night. You'd think he would, unless his decision was that last night or anything like it would never happen again. But what the fuck did I expect? He'd already indicated a lack of interest.

Great, Elphie, just fucking great.

And Bella, even greater.

On we charged into the rising and setting sun, into the seemingly endless and irresolvable entanglements between what I wanted and what was good for me, and what would be sweet and what would hurt. And who wanted to play in the sandbox with Bella, and who didn't.

For fuck's sake - there've got to be easier ways of living your life? Self-help books, religion, psycho-analysis - do these things help you make choices, and then validate them? Personally, I favor alcohol and Lolly - the two great truths. But my heart-sister was currently just as fucked up as me, or even more so.

And there we were, both of us, sitting in the back of a van hurtling towards fuck-knows-what.

"Have you got a note-pad, Lollapalooza?" I asked gloomily. "Do you want to play Hang-man?"

"Yeah, why not?" she answered. "I'm in the mood. Who's going first?"

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Last night I got the most reviews I've had ever! Thank you so much! Twelve!

Stay tuned. Thanks for reading.


	21. Chapter 21

Here's a bit more. It's all my own work! (No-one else would want to claim it)(no-one in their right mind that is)

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chap 20 + 1

Within seconds the boys were clued in to the fact that there was a serious hangman tournament happening, and they all had to be involved, of course, because there can be no show without Punch and the cronies-of-Punch. They wrecked it by shouting, and we threw bits of paper at the them for the two seconds it took until Deadwood made us desist. Really - it was the second-to-last day of the tour, and everyone was hyper, even if there was nothing going on in boyworld of anything like the enormity of the girlworld happenings.

But there was a bit of muttering suddenly amongst the triad of dunces in my band and some throat-clearing and it turned out there had been something major underway in boyworld after all. They had been THINKING. Ron as spokesperson announced a proposal that we all dress with some sort of theme for the tv show tomorrow, which was the first inkling of wardrobe interest they'd ever shown.

"Uh?" I replied, stupefied at the thought that any of them, let alone all three, had actually had an idea, but Lolster recovered from the shock more quickly than I did.

"And what sort of theme were you thinking of?" she asked.

"Hawaiian," Ron answered proudly, grinning like some little kid who's just done something clever and praiseworthy.

"Bra_vo_," she said. "And do you actually _have_ anything Hawaiian?"

Them being them, of course they didn't, but hello America. Every thrift store in the country stocks an array of aloha shirts because they just do. For the first time in living history, once we'd stopped at the next town, the entire four of us in all our glory went shopping together. Deadwood rolled his eyes of course, but he just had to suck it up.

Unfortunately, this meant that I didn't have the window of opportunity to pin him to the nearest wall by his testicles and demand that he explain himself under fear of castration.

It only took one store for the boys to find things they were happy with, being so fucking non-discerning. But it was a cool place for a browse. Lolly and I both bought sarongs, and groovy retro bikinis to wear with them. Eduardo the Magnificent actually deigned to venture through the door, to my surprise, because I figured him for one of those people who wouldn't touch anything second-hand in case they caught something unmentionable from it. He looked through the bookcases while we tried on stuff, and he even managed a laugh or two when the guys suggested he pick out a shirt for himself. This idea was patently ridiculous since Eddie was such a monochrome man.

"Are you with us or against us?" Ron asked him, and Deadwood replied something that sounded like, "a little bit of both," which could have been either accurate or presumptuous. It depended on how well-disposed towards him any of us felt at any particular point in time. Oh crap - who am I kidding? Everyone fucking loved his guts except me. Even Lauren, traitorous bitch.

While the others were selecting flower necklaces, I wandered to the cd racks. Now, a while ago I had hassled Edward about listening to classical music, but the truth is, I actually like it. I flipped through what was there, which wasn't much, and came across an old favorite - a collection of Bartok's Night Music. I used to own a copy but during one of my far too frequent moves between apartments I'd misplaced it somewhere. The price tag only said five bucks, which was a disgrace and disrespecting of his genius, so I paid twice that and tucked it into my bag.

"Ready to go?" Edward asked, as the boys all lined up at the counter paying for their loud, loud shirts and other weird assorted purchases. Mike was really getting into the spirit of the dressing up idea and had found beige loafers. Lolly bought me frangipani haircombs, and had found hibiscus ones for herself. Deadwood seemed to be clutching a book.

"What's that you're buying? How To Lose Friends And Alienate People?" I inquired. "You don't need it."

"Actually, it's Letterology For Beginners," he replied smoothly. "Thought I'd do a little research."

"There's no such thing as letterology," I said in a kind voice, just to let him know.

"So you're not fuckhot and fuckawesome?"

"Oh, Edward, did you realize the word gullible is written on the ceiling above your head?"

He looked up. I snorted.

"Jesus, whoever wrote that can't spell," he muttered, and, without thinking, _I_ looked up. I am a fucking dickhead hopeless loser. I didn't dare catch his eye on the way back out to the van - I didn't need to. I could hear the snickering.

"Well - you can't spell, yourself," I retorted. "You think your name has an "a" in it, but actually it's "ei"."

"Very good, Bella. How long have you been working on that?"

"How long have you been working on living up to your true name?"

But back at the van he tossed the keys to Ben, and announced he was sitting with me.

"Let's get you blogging," he said. "I'll set you up an account. What do you want to call yourself?"

And he got his laptop out, and sat next to me while Ben and Lola sat up the front arguing about whether left-handed people are smarter than right-handed people - and he had a go at talking me through the twitbook thingummy.

"Oh, you mean I'm supposed to say something pithy and compelling every five seconds?" I asked.

"That shouldn't be any problem for you."

Was that sarcastic? I couldn't tell, so I ignored it.

"It's telling me I need to upload a photo. Where do I get a photo from?"

"Here - I've set up a folder," he answered, and fuck me dead. Fuck me sideways. Fuck me seventeen times, and then more again.

He opened a folder on his desktop, and it was pictures of me.

Dozens of them.

I gaped.

"Ed_weird_," I said eventually, after clicking on a dozen or so, trying to sound calm. "Why and how do you have all these photos?"

His composure didn't unruffle in the slightest, and he nodded generally at the screen. "People post them, Bella. I try and keep a handle on it all. There are pictures of all five of you, you know, but you and Lauren get the most attention. Don't freak out - it's just the way it is. You're both very compelling. You're both beautiful."

Well, I died for about ten seconds. I departed this life, and floated on an ethereal plane.

"You think so?" I said.

Eduardo the Magnificent didn't say anything. Or more accurately - he didn't say anything to me. He called, "Ben - next left."

It turned out we'd only been a couple of hours drive from the next gig. That meant we had all afternoon and evening to kill before the next show. It also meant we were nearly home. We were half exhausted, half glad, and half disappointed - three halves. Let me say now that maths has never been my strongest subject.

We all dragged ourselves up to the reception desk in various states of disinterest, and Deadwood performed his negotiations with the clerk and handed out the cardkeys. Imagine my surprise when he handed one to Lolly and announced that I'd be sharing with him again.

"Edweird, I don't think you quite understand the degree to which mine and Lauren's lesbian love will fade without nightly attention," I claimed, but he didn't even respond.

"Did you hear that everyone?_ Lesbians_. I thought so," Mike mumbled, and Lauren grabbed him by the ear.

"We wouldn't be lesbians if you had a _dick_," she muttered right back.

"Oh, you know I've got a dick, baby. It's got your lipstick on it," Mike replied, just before I punched him. You get to a point in every tour when it's time to stuff somebody into a fridge and shut the door, and punching them is the first step.

However Deadwood, who had my bag, had turned his back on everybody and was striding off. Wearing my protest face, I went after him.

"About this ridiculous rooming arrangement - " I started, but he just turned to me and sighed.

"We can argue about it later all you like Bella, I promise, but could I just get a couple of hours sleep first?" he asked. "Take this, and get started on your online persona."

He flipped his laptop open again, entered his password, and handed the whole thing to me.

"Give me two hours, and then I'll give you all the reasons I don't want you room-hopping? And you have the right of reply?"

He was so exhausted, and I'm not always the bitch I pretend to be.

"Okay, Gog," I mumbled. "You seriously need some beauty sleep, anyway."

Untruth of the year.

He stretched out on one of the beds and was out like a light, and I sat against the headboard of the other, laptop on my knees. I opened the profile he'd set up for me earlier, and started putting in random stuff. I'm Bella Swan - and I like: marathon running, concentric ripples, winter, hazelnut meringue torte. Influences: all of the above.

My eyes kept sneaking to Edward. When he was awake, and hassling the shit out of me, he was Deadwood. Right now, he was Gog, and beautiful enough for me to want to lie myself down alongside him and kiss him half-awake, and then let nature be our guide. Looking at his hair was sheer porn. His eyebrows. His eyelashes. The bridge of his nose - oh, hallelujah, praise the god of perving. It just occurred to me that I could stare and stare at him to my heart's content, drinking in every detail in a way I'd never been able to before, because he couldn't catch me at it. Two hours of viewing pleasure?

So I watched him sleep. I familiarized myself with every freckle while I was at it. Oh, Gog, if I ever get to touch you, my fingers will read your body like a braille map.

I probably only lasted fifteen minutes before I needed something else to do, though. How long can a person watch another person sleep? It's not that fascinating.

I decided to look in every folder on his desktop, and to follow every link in his favorites list to see if he was harboring a spank bank. I was curious as to what he might like, but after trawling around for ages, I didn't discover anything. Either he wasn't an internet perv, or he had expertly covered his tracks in the event that anyone might get hold of his laptop and have a look around inside it. Saint or genius?

And then of course it occurred to me that he might be able to track my movements and see what I'd been looking at. So I deleted the history. And then I thought fuck I'm a dick, because everyone in the world including grandmas and toddlers knows more about computers and IT shit than I do, so my amateur cyber-talking, and cyber-covering-up of cyber-stalking were going to be apparent. I needed to set fire to this wretched thing so that he couldn't track what I'd been up to.

But all the computer age worry was starting to affect my nerves. And crapping feck, and fecking crap - why was I hanging around in here next to Sleeping Beauty anyway? Why wasn't I pouring out my heart and all my woes to Lauren, and listening to hers in return? How had Deadwood hypnotized me to the point that I was sitting here as docile as, um, something extremely docile?

And, I needed to talk to Jasper. I wasn't quite sure exactly what I was going to say to him, but I needed to say something.

First things first - what room was Lolly-Polly in? Had I heard Edward tell her? Yes, I had.

There was paper on the desk and a pen nearby - how convenient, that's why these hoteliers get the big bucks - and I wrote Eddie a note, _"Leaving town with a Brazilian fitness instructor. You can contact me at ILoveMuscles, Santiago. PS I've dropped in to say goodbye to Lauren before I go" _which I left on his pillow, right under his nose.

When I called, "Opportunity knocks!" outside Lolly's door, she opened up immediately.

"Who does Edward think he is, keeping us apart like this?" she asked.

"I don't know, but clearly he should be in corrective services. He has a talent for it," I answered. "Lolly - we have so much to catch up on. Hours and hours of missed girltalk. How are you holding up?"

"Oh, I swerve in and out of being okay. You know?"

Oh boy, did I know. I was doing the same thing, but my scenario was quite different... and Lolly was facing something real and in-your-face and this-has-to-be-dealt-with in a way that I wasn't. Tomorrow she'd see her soon-to-be-ex boyfriend.

"You've been speaking with James?"

"Yes, daily, but it's been so strained. I'm sure he's guessed there's something amiss. I've been rehearsing scripts in my head, trying to work out the most sensitive way to tell him..."

"Oh, God. Whatever way you tell him it's going to hurt, but "Hey baby you're dumped" would be direct and quick. I don't know how kind you can be about this. If you're not direct, he's going to think you just want a break and there's still hope."

"I guess..."

"And Lorry - are you planning on him moving out? Or are you moving out? Because you can always come and stay with me while you sort things with the apartment." The thought of poor little Lola, broken-hearted, teary-eyed, sobbing alone into a box of tissues was too wrenching for words.

Lauren gulped. "Oh, Jesus, Bella, I hadn't even thought about that. I don't know what's going to happen! Maybe I will need somewhere to stay for a few days... Thanks for the offer. You're such a BFF."

"Of course I am, darling. Don't even think twice about it. Now, how are things with Tyler?"

"You know I've shut that down, Bells, I had to. I can't actually believe I fucked him. I lost my brain back there for a while. But I can't have him in my head when I get back tomorrow - I have to be clear and strong and honest. Tyler's a factor, yeah, but this isn't about him. He's a fucking complication, actually."

"A complication you might call a catalyst."

"Oh, maybe you're right."

"He was the finger on your trigger. I mean, your trigger of decision. I'm sure he didn't have his finger anywhere else."

"Fuck you're filthy. I've missed you."

Lauren and I probably _were_ a little bit lesbian - just without the sex. We were right into the full-body contact, though. I crash-tackled her for being so rude to me, and there's a place on my spine she found a year or so ago that turns me into a jelly-fish, and she jellyfished me, and I pulled her hair a little bit, because that's what you do when you have a girlfight.

"But you and Gog - spill, honey. What's the go?" she asked panting.

"There is no go."

"Oh, come _on_. Why on earth is he insisting you're in his room? I'll tell you. Two reasons. One - to get you away from Jasper, who is his only threat. Two - just wait for tonight. He'll turn the lights down low, he'll get undressed, he'll stand there all, you know, naked and _rampant_, and he's going to - "

"Oh, Lola, he's so tired from all his fucking autocracy that he's already half-alseep while he's brushing his teeth. Last night he passed out sitting against the bed when I gave him a scalp massage."

"You _rubbed_ his _head_?"

God, Lolly's fun.

"I said _scalp massage,_ you dirty bitch."

"Whatever. And Jax?"

God, Lolly's difficult. I took a deep breath.

"Well - I think I decided. Even though Deadwood's such an asshat and Jax is completely the opposite, and even though Deadwood would rather poke himself in the eye with a blunt stick than be anywhere near me and Jax is completely the opposite - "

"I believe you're overlooking the shared-room circumstance - " came the dry interruption.

"_As I was saying_, although it goes against all instinct for self-preservation, and all non-masochism, and all rationality and non-idiocy - I think - "

"Is this introspective speech going to take long?"

She was beaming all over her pretty face. It was probably time for more hair-pulling. So I pulled her hair, and asked, "Lauren Mallory, did you ever hear of the interrupting cow?"

"No, I don't think - "

"Mooo!"

"Oh, I get it. Sorry if I - "

"_Mooo!_"

She jellyfished me and I writhed so hard I fell over, still holding a hank of her hair. She fell over too.

"The point I am trying to make, Lauren, is that despite no doubt dooming myself to months more of celibacy - "

"Instead of an indefinite amount of time with a _proven orgasm generator_ - "

"Thank you for bringing that up. But yes, I've chosen - "

I couldn't say his name. Her blue eyes, serious now, looked steadily into mine. "You really have, haven't you? Wow. You know what this means..."

"Yes and no. It means I'm a fucking mentalhead, for one thing. What do _you_ think it means?"

"It means you haven't just got a crush. If you wanted fun with a hot guy, you'd have picked the Jaxinator. He's Fun Central. But no, you've picked the complicated one. The one you're unsure of. The one who unsettles you. Actually, you know Bells - "

"Mmm?" What pearl of wisdom was Lolly about to deliver?

"Bells, maybe the decision wasn't yours to make. You know, I think maybe it was always going to be a foregone conclusion. Since the day you met him you've been like an unexploded bomb. You're in love with Edward Cullen."

She'd stunned me. "I fucking am _not_!" I insisted. "Why would I choose to waste my energy like that?"

"It's not a choice, Bella. Or not a conscious one, anyway. It's an elemental force. And it won't be denied."

"But he doesn't want me!"

"Oh, yes he does. I don't know what the obstacle is, but he wants you all right."

Picking myself up off the floor, I tried vainly to comb my hair out of the tangles it had coiled itself into. Lolly's hair never misbehaved the way mine did, because hers was so straight. It just fell like a waterfall. It was much easier to think about Lauren's silken, straight, well-behaved hair than the stuff that was coming out of her mouth.

"Go and jump him now, and see how he reacts," she suggested.

"No! You're sick and weird. Normally I like that in a girl, but with you, it's unbecoming," I muttered. "What are we wearing tonight?"

On to a safe subject - on to anything to take my mind off Lauren's theory. And to take my mind off Gog, who was right now lying on a bed a couple of doors down the hall. A room to which I had the key, and in which I would be staying too, and tonight we'd be in there together. Him and me. And last night - I'd yet to speak to him about what had happened last night. And he'd promised me an argument about why we were sharing. In light of Lauren's "he wants you" assertion - what would he say? I'd thought he was making me stay with him to try and punish me in some way.

"Skinny T's and skinny jeans?" Lauren said, and for half a second I wondered what she was talking about. I'd forgotten what I'd asked her.

"Oh yeah - agreed," I answered, struggling back to the present. "Well, I'm so glad we could have this little chat," I added, because suddenly I wanted to get back to Edward and watch him sleeping some more.

"Sure. Happy to to help. Anytime," Lauren said. "And you've let Jasper down gently?"

"_Shit_!"

I had to call Jasper. Right the fuck then. I dug my phone out of my pocket and scrolled to his number.

"I'll just find out which room he's in, and then I'll go see him straight away," I explained, to her chagrined look. This was a conversation he and I had to have in person and in private - not on the phone in front of Lauren, for fuck's sake!

And that bourbon-soaked, sex-drenched voice answered, "Bella?" with a smile in it that warmed my ear and cheek right through the phone.

"Jas, what room are you in?" I asked.

"The control room," he answered.

Oh Jesus fuck, the Jaxinator was kinky! He was into BDSM. He was calling his bedroom the Control Room, and he probably had silk scarves in there, and handcuffs and a whip, and fuck-knows-what. There hadn't been a hint of this the other night, or indeed, ever.

"Uh - and where is that exactly?" I enquired, because, dammit, I had to talk to him, handcuffs or no.

"At the radio station."

"Huh?" Now what was he talking about?

"I'm on air, sweetheart, I'm doing an interview."

On air? An interview?

"You're on _air_? On the _radio_? _Live_?" I yelped. Crap-fucking-tastic.

"I surely am, babe, and so are you. Ladies and gentlemen - Mizz Bella Swan," he drawled.

It couldn't be true - could it? "But why would you answer your phone if you're live on air doing a radio interview?" I asked.

"Because it was you."

My knees gave out and I sagged down to the bed, Lauren watching me quizzically. Could this man be _any_ fucking gorgeouser? Could I be making a huge mistake? Could I drag out this silence any longer? No, maybe, yes.

"Wonderful to hear from you Bella - and what can we expect from tonight's performance?" a voice broke in, and it must have been the dj, trying to save his show from the dreaded dead air sound of someone being speechless.

"Beauty and strangeness - the usual," I said, attempting to recover. "Sorry to interrupt, Jas, guess I'll catch up with you later."

I pressed 'end' and told Lauren what had just happened, surreal as it was.

"Well..." she commented, lost for words.

"'_Well'_? That's the best you can do?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Yep. It's your call, Bells. But that Jaxinator is a babe to the fucking _max_, just saying."

Give me strength. I went back to my room, or should I say, mine and Gog's room, and he was still asleep. He was on his back, one leg bent, one arm over his belly and the other flung above his head. I watched him some more - the rugged profile, the elegant eyebrows, the slight pout of his mouth. My brain had gone to mush.

Apparently someone said once if you think you love two people and you're confused, you should pick the second one, because you weren't sufficiently in love with the first. I had liked Gog first. But shit fuck! I'd heard of Jax first, and lusted after him in pictures and from hearing his music. So really, I had liked Gog second. Shit fuck bugger bum wank ass tit! Why was it all so fucking difficult?

I rummaged around in my bag and dug out my clothes for tonight, then took myself into the bathroom. After knotting my hair on top of my head I had a quick shower, then toweled myself, pulling on panties and wriggling into my jeans. Topless, I started to apply my makeup, because that's the order I like to do things.

I was standing there, having blended foundation and added eyeshadow, mascara wand in my hand, when the fucking door opened, and Gog walked in.

We both shouted, "_Fuck_!" at the same time, while I stared, startled, into the mirror at his face, and Gog stared into the mirror at my tits. The reflection of my tits. My uncovered, exposed, _naked_, tits. His eyes flickered up to mine and he looked stunned and guilty as fuck, but in less than a split second his gaze had dropped again.

Under the circumstances I did the first thing I thought of. I spun around and threw my mascara at him, shrieking, "Get out, you creep!"

The impromptu weapon didn't do any damage, but at least he reacted.

"Christ, Bella, I'm sorry. _Jesus_! You left a note saying you were out!" he exclaimed, backing through the door. The words were addressed to me, but he was talking to my chest, looking like he'd never seen a pair before. I was a little gratified actually, at the way he swallowed and at the way his lips had parted and his tongue had flickered between them.

I slammed the door and leaned heavily against it, yelling, "Jerk! Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" but as I did so I checked myself out in the mirror. My breasts were small, and when I was younger I'd assumed that they weren't as desirable or attractive as larger ones were. But past experience had indicated one or two men seemed to be pretty keen on small breasts. And Jax had been vocal about his appreciation of them, with the 'national treasures' remarks. And now, the normally staid Edward had taken one look at my boobies and been reduced to a perving, slobbering mess.

"Nice work, girls," I smiled. Perky has its perks, and tonight might have just taken an unexpected turn for the better.

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A/N Has anyone got anything to rec?

If you have reviewed me and I haven't replied it's partly syrrahfail, and partly ffn fail. Ffn used to tell you if you'd responded to reviews but it doesn't seem to any more and now I can't tell if I have or not. So pm me if you want. Even if you don't want.


	22. Chapter 22

Thank you for your indulgence. And for putting up with mine. Usual disclaimer.

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter 22

I scraped my t-shirt over my head, wriggling like fuck. It was quite a feat because since Lauren and I really never bothered shopping in the women's department, this garment wasn't much above toddler-size. I'd have difficulty actually inhaling, and it probably wouldn't come off in one piece. If the seams hadn't split during the show I'd have to cut it off. If no-one took it apart with their bare teeth, that is.

Emerging from the bathroom I was glad to see that Gog wasn't in the room, and had presumably scuttled off somewhere, unwilling to quite face me just yet. Although that meant I didn't get my promised argument, it also meant I could finish getting ready without being self-conscious in his presence. For instance, I wanted to do some warm-up singing, which I did, happily, all by myself. I wanted to throw on a hoodie, so that no-one saw my t-shirt before I went onstage. Mike would hate it and I had no idea what reception it would get from Deadwood.

Quite frankly, I had no idea what reception _I_ would get from Deadwood, after what had just happened. One thing I did know, beyond any doubt - he liked my breasts. Either that, or he was a titman who liked _all_ breasts. Oh, fuck. Maybe he liked huge ones, and even fake ones? Maybe it didn't mean anything that he'd gaped so helplessly at mine?

I pottered about putting things in my bag until there was a knock at the door, followed by his voice demanding, "Bella, are you ready?" He didn't even have the nerve to come in. Feeling primed like a grenade with the pin pulled out, I marched to the van to confront him and I was the first one there.

"About our argument?" I began, but he wouldn't meet my eye.

"There will be no argument," he replied, with a frosty and absolute edge to his voice. "The rooming arrangements stay as they are."

"_Reneger_," I protested, but he was striding about being managerial and didn't respond.

The arrival of the boys prevented me from chasing him and throwing down a gauntlet, with their loud voices and too many limbs, and big fat feet. Fuck, they lacked social sensitivity and spacial awareness and just basic courtesy, hurling their bags in the back on top of mine. What if I had something breakable in there?

"And hey you guys, guess what?" Mike was braying, like a fucking donkey. "While the Monsters were being interviewed on the radio this afternoon - guess who called in, sounding like a strung-out groupie, asking what hotel room Jasper's in?"

Sweet feckin' Jesus Christ, the Heavenly Host and the entire choir of Angels.

Everyone went quiet, because everyone wanted to know - seemingly - who the strung-out groupie was.

"It was _you_, Michael," I answered, "being a societal reject and therefore desperado, that's just the sort of thing you would do."

Undercover of the others sniggering I slunk to the back seat, wondering whether I could shut Mike's wretched, blurting mouth by telekinesis, or mindpower, or both. Lauren had perched herself next to him, and for about a second he made bleating noises like he was still trying to talk, but then the nasal flow of his voice cut off abruptly. She must have gone ninja on him, sweet avenger that she was.

We got to the venue, and it was all running close tonight - soundcheck was only half an hour before showtime. There was only time to run through one song, and we would just have to hope for the best. Back in the bandroom Mike was in fear for his life, because Lola had clearly told him she'd kill him if he didn't watch his tongue. She didn't leave his side for a second, my pretty rottweiler. I sat close by jonesing for a drink, or a joint, or even a fucking game of cards. Anything to relieve the _tension_.

"Riverdance?" I asked the room at large.

A collective, "Uh?" was the answer. Ben and Ron sat there like idiots, not knowing why Lozzy was hovering over Mike, or why I was wound up and on the verge of erupting - how could they? Deadwood sat there too, sporting what resembled a carefully constructed non-expression. I was jittery and excited, feeling on the edge of an abyss. Fly or die, Bella. I sauntered over to him.

"Excuse me - I'm sure you know by now that we have a secret ritual we perform before we go onstage, and we're very superstitious. It has to be done in private. No offense, Edward, but we really, really need our members-only time. Since you're not one of the Pentavirate, we need you to be elsewhere."

"What?" He didn't believe me for an instant, and quite rightly too, since we'd never insisted on any such thing before.

"Haven't you heard of the column?" I said, when he didn't move. "We have to get into the column."

Miraculously, Ben eased the atmosphere.

"That's quite true, Edward. Group song, then group hug, then the secret handshake." He started singing "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes. Everyone joined in, and it sounded like a dog's breakfast for sure, but it calmed us down and vibed us up at the same time.

Shrugging, and saying, "I'll leave you to it," Edward wandered off.

We did have a group hug then, the five of us. Mike said, "I love you guys," and I said, "You're warped," and Lolly said, "Okay, all join hands."

So we all joined hands until Ben said, "Is anyone else uncomfortable with this?" and Ron answered, "Sort of. I don't like it when people touch my warts," and after we all gagged, we ran out onstage, laughing.

The lights were down, but strobes flashed on as soon as we appeared, and as an intro I'd chosen a recording of a NASA countdown. We'd extended it to include comments and technical talk so that it went longer than ten seconds, and it gave everyone time to pick up their instruments and get ready to rock. And right on blastoff, we tore straight into the first song.

The crowd erupted in shouts and whistles. A sideways glance told me Deadwood was in his usual spot, with that glued-on frown he just had to wear whenever he watched the band. One of these days I'd ask him about it. Well - it would have to be today or tomorrow. But, right now - who cared? There was entertaining to be done.

Two songs in and I was far too hot in my hoodie, so I peeled it off. Lolly took hers off at the same time. Her t-shirt said "Rocket Scientist," which was cute as fuck, and went with the intro we'd used. Mine said "Eu sou seu," which is Portuguese for "I'm yours," not that anyone could possibly know that. I'd had to google it myself.

Our set flashed by like lightning and when it was over I felt like I'd barely started. Some nights you just want to keep fucking going, and play everything again, louder and faster and harder. It was frustrating to have to say goodnight to the crowd, who'd been heaving and yelling and having as much fun as me. At least, I think I'd had fun. My heart was pounding and I was on another plane, but it was all a bit fucking weird. A full house, an ecstatic bunch of concert-goers - and couldn't Deadwood muster a fucking half-grin? And where was Jas, my encourager, who normally watched from the side?

I was last offstage, blowing kisses to the audience and assuring them of my endless love. My bandmates had disappeared by the time I left the stage area, while our loyal and hardworking crew were tidying up, coiling mic leads and guitar cables, and taking our keyboards off, ready for the Monsters to go on.

So fuck - where to now? Down the hall, Bella, second door on the left - that's the band room. My ears were ringing and the others had already disappeared, no doubt to drink the fucking rider and actually _party_, which was what this job was all about, after all. As I stood, briefly disorientated, Jax appeared out of nowhere.

"I was watching from the mezzanine level, darlin'. Another brilliant show. You do it every time - your whole band. And especially you. I couldn't take my eyes off you. You are _electrifying_."

His eyes were bright. No, they were dark. They were shining. Fuck - he was nothing short of electrifying himself. Was I really going to be able to see this through? To tell him I didn't want a relationship with him? It wasn't even fucking true.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there today when you called. When you wanted me," he murmured.

"We need to talk," I managed to mumble, even as he had me by the hand and was pulling me along with him towards one of the doorways.

"We surely do," he answered, opening the door, and he shut it behind us. We were alone in a capsule of space and time - or at least I wished we were.

"First, I want to tell you how beautiful you are," he was saying, and he'd brought his hand up to my cheek, his thumb pressing lightly on my lower lip. My mouth dropped open involuntarily.

"And then I want to kiss you," he continued. "You're so fucking _beautiful_."

Breathing my name, he replaced his thumb with his mouth, and did that thing he did. That slow, slow thing that told me if this was how it felt when we kissed, the chemistry between us when we fucked would send me into the next reality. It would be a supernova. Vibrations were oscillating through me as his tongue found its way towards mine. I was dimly aware that his hands had moved down my sides and curved around my ass, assertively, holding me against him. He wasn't hard yet, but I could feel it starting to happen. And God help me, Lauren was right. My mouth _was_ a whore. As soft groans came from Jasper's throat, my sinful, pleasure-seeking, amoral lips kissed him right back, drugged by him. There was nothing on earth as delectable as his mouth.

But a vestige of honor blared an alarm in my brain like a police car. I couldn't do this. Scraping together all the willpower I could possibly summon under the circumstances, I drew myself away from him.

"Baby?" he whispered, eyes still closed.

"I can't. I'm sorry."

Jax eased back, putting space between us. Too much space, but not nearly enough.

"What's wrong, sweetheart? I'm due on stage in ten minutes. This wasn't going to go any further than kissing, although... I want to get you off. Will you let me try? If it's not enough time..."

His whole fucking body was promising me heaven on earth, or the closest thing to it. I'd seen many expressions from Jasper Whitlock, all of them enticing, but the look on his face right now could have set fire to the Arctic wastes. "If we only get halfway there, we'll just have to conclude our business later..."

"Jasper - uh - no."

"Is it your period? It's okay, baby, you know I'm fine with that. I won't do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable."

Jebus, he kept _slaying_ me. What on earth was I thinking, imagining I was going to turn this guy down in favor of someone cold, aloof, bossy and unreasonable?

But - the world's biggest hopeless fool looked back at possibly the world's most sexy, gracious and appealing man, and did the stupidest thing ever done, saying, "No, it's not my period."

He was playing with my hair, and he had one thigh between both of mine as if it belonged there, one hip angled gently against me.

"Well, I'll see you in the bandroom after our set, yeah? We can talk."

"We're leaving before then. Edward wants us all to get back to the hotel because we've got to head out early in the morning."

"Okay then - what room are you in, darlin'? I'll leave as soon as we're finished and I'll come by to see you."

This was really hard. I'd wanted to take some time and talk to him properly, but it seemed I might have to account for myself here and now. It wasn't fair to him to postpone it.

"You can't come to my room, Jax," I admitted.

"Why? Because of Edward?"

I nearly leapt out of my skin, and felt myself go scarlet in spectacular fashion. How could he possibly know? How could he have picked up on that?

"Are you worried he'll find out and reprimand you?" Jas continued.

Oh, he didn't know. He thought it was a managerial issue. I sagged against him, and looked up, relieved yet still blushing, and probably looking like I'd just been caught red-handed. And fuck me, the smile faded from Jasper's face.

"Oh, Christ - you_ are_ worried about Edward! I was kidding! Babe - it's none of his business what you do and who you're with, really. As long as you're not breaking the law, or taking stupid risks. Bella?"

He paused, and I remained mute, unable to explain myself.

"Oh, _Christ_," he said, frowning, staring, and I saw the cogs going around as he processed it, and worked it out.

"_He's_ the one, isn't he? It's him, _Edward_ - the guy you said you like! You don't want to be with me because of him."

Jax deserved an answer, even if I could barely formulate one. Clearly, I was troubled and insane. My choice would inevitably lead down a precipitous path of sorrow and despair, with the givens. The knowns. The fact that Gog thought I was a dickhead and was looking forward to off-loading me the second he could get away with it, and I would be facing spinsterhood and austerity and having to go and see chick-flicks for the rest of my life, inserting myself into the role of the leading lady because that would be the closest I'd get to kissing a sexy and gorgeous man who wanted me.

Whereas if I'd chosen Jasper, I would _be_ the leading lady, in a fucking fantasy-come-true. Sexy and gorgeous man who wants me? Kissing, _and the rest_? Tick that box.

"Bella?..."

I couldn't say anything, because I was too much of a halfwit, and he was nothing of the sort. I nodded feebly, and he sighed.

"Well. I wish you all the best. I care for you. It's true we haven't known each other very long, but Bella, I _care._ We shared something intimate and precious the other night, and I'll treasure the memory - but we're about more than that. Born to be friends, darlin'. Keep my number. Call me. I'll call you. I want you in my life," he said. I could have smacked myself in the fucking mouth for being so stupid, for choosing someone who was surely the wrong man.

"Oh, Jax," I mumbled.

"Jax? No-one's called me that before. I like it. How did you dream that up?

Thoughtlessly, I replied, "It's a combination of Jasper and sex."

"Oh, _babe_. If you're saying no to me you can't talk to me like that. I respect your decision, but please don't be sending out mixed messages or you'll really be messing with me. I wouldn't want to be one of two with you, Mizz Bella."

I bowed my head, and he held me close again, although lightly, and I felt him kiss the top of my head. Even though he was taking this so calmly, and said he wanted to be in my life, I felt wracked with misery. When his arms loosened and he moved away, I didn't want to let go.

"Rock calls, sweetheart," he murmured. "Come on, now. Look, I guess I probably won't see you tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow. Okay? Don't be sad, Beauty. This thing between us, it ain't over. We're going to be the best of friends. And I'll kick that Edward all the way to the next county if he hurts you."

"He doesn't like me."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. In fact, I most _definitely_ wouldn't say that."

Yeah, well, I had spent way more time on the business end of Deadwood's disapproval than Jasper had. I thought myself a bit of an authority in the matter of Edward Cullen vs Bella Swan - full of empirical evidence for and against the probability of the named protagonists ever getting it on.

Anyway. Oh, shit. Why couldn't I occupy and inhabit another Bella Swan in another dimension - and experience all that the Jaxinator could offer me? And me him? Yeah, philosophers and physicists would like to know.

Jasper and I parted in the hall, and I was so despondent I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I longed for Lolly. I wanted to curl up with her and hug her and just cry. Never in my life had I been in a position where I'd turned down something I actually wanted - and Jax had been so fucking _lovely_. And before he'd been lovely, he'd been so fucking sexy. And, as Lol had so kindly pointed out, he was a proven orgasm generator. She and I had had enough experience between us, and enough frank conversations to know that there are some combinations of people that just don't work sexually. What if me and Deadwood were one of them? And shit, face facts, Bella. Like there's even any likelihood of ever even finding out! Yeah, he'd gone slack-jawed at the sight of my breasts. So what? If I opened my mouth we'd argue. And my breasts probably broke some regulation anyway. They weren't on his spreadsheet.

I had a matter to attend to in the women's restroom pertaining to the time of the month, and I simply sat in the cubicle for a while there, mourning my situation. And just to add to it all there was a minor irritation at the edge of my consciousness, alongside the major stuff, like the world-rending thing I'd just done. The minor thing was nagging for attention. WTF? My skin hurt, just under and to the side of my chest. An under-the-clothes inspection revealed some stupid fucking stitching had come undone on my bra and the underwire was poking through, gouging me. Well, crap, just what I needed on this night of nights - a mortal wound. Get the fuck outta here! But I had to take the injurious lingerie off before what was already a painful little red spot became a festering sore big enough for me to fall right into. Melodrama? Me? I didn't have a bag with me to stuff the stupid bra into, and anyway, I'm no seamstress. It's not like I could fix it. Fifty bucks of my hard earned fucking sweat and labor was poked behind the cistern and I headed back to the bandroom.

Straight to a grim-faced Deadwood.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. "I distinctly told everyone we were leaving straight after the set."

Oh, yeah. He did too. I forgot. Because, I forgot. But _shit_! He wanted to know where I'd been? Let's just fucking tell him. Part of it, anyway.

"If you really want to know Edward, the fact is, I've been in the women's bathroom. I'm on my _period_. I was _changing my tampon._"

Everyone was in there, my whole band. The ones with dicks turned to stone.

"I'm sorry if I've inconvenienced you. Attending to personal hygiene at this time of the month can take a minute or two."

They'd all shut up; they'd all heard me. You could have dropped a pin in there and it would have sounded like a steel girder crashing to the floor. Edward opened his mouth and then shut it again, and I was meeting his gaze, with no shame or remorse. For all I knew the rest of the boys had turned purple and started shakin' and a-quakin'. Lauren was probably fist-pumping.

Then Deadwood took a deep breath and said, "All right. Are you set to go?"

"Yes, Edward, I am all fixed up and we can leave whenever it suits you."

I stared around at everyone else, and I'd been right. The boys looked like I'd just produced the head of Medusa, and Lolly looked like someone had just said the best thing ever.

I was the first one out of there, hearing Deadwood muster them behind me. In the van, Lolly held my hand, because she has empathy, and she knew that something must have happened. The boys sat with their mouths zipped shut, because menstruation had been mentioned. At our destination, she and I had a brief hug before she headed off to her single room, and I headed off to my shared one.

And back in the room, Edward locked himself straight into the bathroom. Well, fuck him. Never mind chivalry, never mind ladies first, just go and attend to whatever while I do cartwheels out here.

Ordinarily, I might be doing cartwheels if I was with Lolita, but actually, I was too washed up tonight. I dug out my new cd and put it on the player that was nailed to the wall so nobody could steal it, and I sat down to pull my boots off. Gog emerged with his fucking hair standing up everywhere, and wearing a t-shirt that was torn. With his plaid pajama pants. The fucking bastard. He looked fifty kinds of jumpable, and I didn't need the fucking provocation. Really.

"What's this?" he asked.

"What's what?" The twenty-first century? Downtown middle America? Life-As-We-Know-It?

"This music? Is is the radio?"

"No, it's a cd."

"Whose cd?"

Oh fuck. You're fucking me off. "Whose do you think?"

"I don't know. Does it belong to the hotel?"

"Actually no, Edward, it's mine. And I feel like listening to it, so if it's bothering you I suggest you ring down to reception and get them to send somebody up to construct a soundproof but invisible wall down the centre of the room so you can still be my watchdog and see that I don't contravene any paragraphs or clauses of the Geneva Convention..."

He was looking at me. _Looking_. Floppy hair and torn t-shirt looking.

"It's not bothering me at all. I have a copy and I know it note-for-note. I'm just surprised. I thought you didn't like classical music. When I played some in my car you called me something colourful and negative - a retrogressive wanker?"

Fuck off. I'm upset. "You think I'm so uncultured don't you? Uneducated, uncouth. Un-fucking likeable, unmanageable and unbelievable."

"No," he said, crossing the room to sit on his bed facing me. "Bella, are you okay? You seem a little down. Is it anything you want to talk about?"

Ha! Talk to _you_ about breaking up with my not-boyfriend? I want to talk to Lolly about it, sure, but not you.

"Why are you locking me up as if I'm some kind of delinquent?" I huffed instead.

He had no qualms about this - he looked me steadily in the eye. "I don't want you room-hopping in the night and falling off a balcony."

"You could have booked all our rooms on the ground floor, and saved yourself the worry, not to mention the inconvenience of having to share with me. The _embarrassment_."

"I'm not embarr - oh, you mean this afternoon. Again, I'm sorry. I honestly thought you weren't here."

I couldn't really muster a glare, but I probably came up with something baleful. He frowned.

"And I'm sorry about tonight at the venue, when I was harassing you for taking too long. That was insensitive of me - but, of course I didn't know about you needing extra time in the bathroom."

"Oh - you think I should make announcements about my menstrual cycle? Just so you're aware of it?"

He poked his hands into his hair. "Your next TM could probably do with a heads up."

"Well, note it on a calendar," I suggested. "I'm pretty regular."

Those disconcerting green eyes of his met mine.

"Consider it noted," he said.

It seemed a good enough time then for me to go and get changed into sleep wear, and do the night time stuff. Gog was still looking frighteningly Goggish when I came out of the bathroom. He was at the table, on his laptop, sleepy and tousled and unshaven. I walked over to him, because I'd put my hair band down on the table. I was wearing the t-shirt from the show because I often sleep in whatever t-shirt I've had on for a gig. I said, "Excuse me," as I reached across him, tits right in his face, and he went catatonic, until he turned his head at right-angles and seemed to find the wall fascinating.

"Well, good night then," I said, glancing up to the mirror above the table, and that's when I noticed quite how cheap and nasty the t-shirt really was. It had only cost me two bucks fifty brand new, which was saying something. The fabric was super, super thin. Without the coverage afforded by my bra I could see not only the shape of my nipples, but a hint of their color. And they were inches from Edward's lips.

"I'm yours," he whispered.

I wasn't thinking too clearly, what with all the drama of the evening. I just stood there in front of him, raising my arms and pulling my hair back, making a loose braid to secure with the elastic band.

"I'm yours," he said again, and this time it registered, although shit, I was slow.

I thought he'd said he was mine...

_Oh shit!_ My shirt! He'd been staring, but maybe this time it hadn't been about my breasts. He must speak Portuguese. Who in fucking north America speaks any fucking Portuguese?

But he hadn't finished. He was obviously tired, but he had more he wanted to say.

"Bella, those things you said just now. About what I think of you. None of them were accurate."

Oh. Um. Oh. I was standing right in front of him, and I don't know who did what first, but somehow my arms were around his shoulders, and his were around my waist. There was nothing exciting about it, but there was a calmness and a trust. I couldn't have stood like this with Mike in a thousand years, and I'd known Edward for far less time. Weird me out, Gog. What do I do, with your crazy hair under my fingers and your nose breathing into my waist?

"What _do_ you think, Edward?" I sighed.

"I think it's time we went to bed."

.

.

.


	23. Chapter 23

usaul disclamier apllise

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair...

(Surely I didn't just say that)

Chapter 23

It is a known fact amongst sociologists and keen observers of non-verbal communication systems within human society that certain groups of people who know one another intimately can convey complex messages and even carry out sophisticated conversations by means of gestures meaningless and indecipherable to those around them not privy to their secret alphabet. Says Bella Freud, Dr.

And so it was that in the van, with nothing but the tiniest raise of an eyebrow, Lolly requested the gritty, grimy intel about the previous night.

And with a tiny, all but imperceptible pursing of my lips, I gave it to her.

"_Seriously_?" she demanded incredulously, using eyebrow-speak.

"_Seriously_," I affirmed without a word.

"But - ?" she hesitated, gaze flickering to my chest and back to my face with a swiftness that to anyone but the most astute scholar of face-language would have looked like no more than a blink, "You looked so fucking hot!"

Maybe I did, and maybe he was even affected by the purported hotness, but Cardinal Cullen had steered me to one of the beds and pulled the coverlet back for me. He'd done the laying-on of hands, on non-erogenous parts of my body, such as shoulders. _Only_ shoulders, in fact. He'd tugged the covers up quickly and sighed deeply, and said, "I wish - " and our eyes had caught. His were unreadable. He was breaking my heart. What the fuck did he wish? Was it that he hadn't taken a fucking vow of celibacy and chastity and dedication to a Bella-free life? Was it that he hadn't submitted to becoming a castrato to preserve his beautiful singing voice? What was it? Maybe he just wished that he was in a hotel room right now with my tits, but with not-me. Someone who didn't have my failings, and my inadequacy, and my not-good-enoughness, and my fucking whatever.

I'd started to cry. Not about sex, though. I just wanted him to fucking like me.

"Oh, Jesus, Bella," he'd said. "I'm so sorry. I don't know why you're upset, and you should be with Lauren right now, because God knows she'd be more use to you than I am, but it's late. She's probably asleep. I'm sorry. Maybe it was an error of judgement, making you share with me, but I was worried about you. I just wanted you to be safe."

And he'd gathered me close and held me and rocked me and whispered words I couldn't make out, and we'd stayed like that until I was through.

"Sleep now?" he'd murmured, and I'd nodded into the warmth of his chest, knowing his t-shirt was wet with my tears.

"We'll be home tomorrow," he'd said, easing away and letting me go. "One more show - in front of your home crowd, where you'll be local heroes. And then you can rest. It's been pretty rigorous. Everyone's tired. You've worked so hard."

We'd _worked?_ _Hard_? Edward. _You're_ the fucking local hero, holding the reins on a bunch of brats who've had too much red licorice and raspberry cordial, and who run amok and get paid for it. Oh, hang on. Bella Melodrama Swan is the principal offender. And furthermore, to demonstrate her complete lack of control over her faculties, not to mention her divorce from reality, she got a pathetic crush on the kindergarten teacher, the adult responsible for childminding her. Classic, predictable, textbook. Freud would have found me fucking boring. Jax had been mildly amused by me, but would now find himself someone - I don't know - intelligent and interesting? Just someone. Edward would do the same. He probably liked girls with keen and inquisitive minds - for instance, other journalism graduates. Not vacuous fucking harpies with a penchant for drinking too much and being colossal dickheads, not necessarily in that order.

Overwhelmingly sorry for myself, I'd scooted down in the bed and shut my eyes. I'd felt the mattress shift as he stood up, and I'd heard the faint sounds of him crossing the room and turning the lamp off, and then getting in to the other bed. He'd murmured, "Sleep well," and I'd held on, waiting for his breathing to become even and regular. Exhausted as he was, it was only a matter of minutes, and then over in the loser's corner, the silent, scalding tears had fallen again, unchecked.

That was my second night "sleeping" with Edward.

And on scratchy synthetic seats with expanses of great American nothing whizzing by the windows, following our brief but elucidating undetectable discussion, Lolly pulled out her phone and emailed me. From a foot away.

"_Come on, spill. What actually went on?_"

"_The usual. Big nothing_."

"_I refuse to believe that. Plenty went on in _my_ room and I was _alone!"

"_Shut up you onanistic lunatic. I'll tell your doctor he needs to increase your dosage_."

"_Bella, baby. Tell me_."

"_We talked a bit, but not about, you know, the befuddlement of the EB universe, and he gave me a hug that was all the shades of more confusion, and then he shuffled off to Buffalo and I cried into the pillow_."

"_Oh, darling. Don't let it get you down, I reckon we have a few options. Lezzyism, groups, or animals_."

"_I'll get back to you on that, but option three sounds the most promising_."

And if anyone ever tells you live TV is fun, they're either an adrenaline junkie with an off-the-scale ego, or they don't know what they're talking about.

We pulled into to the carlot at the studio where Latebirds was shot, and we were sent straight to makeup.

"You have lovely skin," this flouncy guy said to me, pressing me into a chair and swiveling me around. "I'm Carmen. Don't ask. You have great cheekbones. Okay - I'll tell you. Car. Men. Get it?"

I wasn't sure I did, but I didn't like to say so. He was completely bald and had no eyebrows, but what looked like tattooed lines above his eyes.

"I'll just tidy up your hair so I can comb it back out of the way," he said, and he combed my hair until I nearly had an out-of-body experience.

"Have you ever thought of selling this?" he whispered, gathering all the strands up and holding them, watching me in the mirror. A fucking fetishist. Crap.

"Our bass player Mike's got great hair," I told him. "It's naturally blond and really thick."

Carmen immediately called out to a hapless minion to fetch Mike and he left me. Another stylist came over. Someone, thankfully, who got on with the job - the job of applying warpaint. I'd done enough photoshoots and video clips to know that they pack on the foundation and eyeliner and everything, because under the lights you'll look too wan otherwise. However, my beauty guru had only done one of my eyes when the show's presenter, Jane Alexander, strolled on in with enough self-importance to stop traffic. Everything immediately revolved around her. Another assistant drily muttered into my ear, "Come back in half an hour," and that was me out of there.

We'd been assigned a dressing room and my bandmates were all sitting around, waiting. I looked like a fucking ghoul, with one emo-goth eye, and one normal eye, thanks to Jane, megastar. Mike was displaying a bizarro back-combed, slicked-over, whirl of hairspray on his head thanks to Carmen, megafreak. Ron and Ben though it was hilarious, and gave us both hell. We'd been left a platter of sandwiches which was perilously close to becoming the launch pad for weapons of minor destruction in a foodfight when I got summonsed back to the beauty parlor.

My eyes were symmetricalized, while Ron and Ben went through the production line, less ridiculously than Michael. Meanwhile, Carmen was working on Lola, no doubt suggesting she commodify her dead keratin as well.

Then we were escorted to the studio to run through our song, and the crew planned their camera angles, using a little crane thingy, and a little track thingy for the little wheeled thingy that the camera sat on. Looking in the monitor, I thought they got a bit too close to up my nose for my liking, but they told me not to look in the monitor. We went back to the room and changed into our Hawaiian outfits, and we looked like escapees from some sort of tv show another country might make to show how awful Americans are. How fucking awesome. Not.

Then it was down to business. Jane Alexander, who turned out to be a total fuckface, interviewed me and cut off every sentence I tried to utter, and got me so mad I was ready to punch her donkey-assed head in. Deadwood had said she was a fan! The only act she was a fan of was her own fucking clown act. I stomped off to the stage and we played our song for the studio audience and all the people out there in tv-land, and we all _rocked_ it, because we were all so pissed off with stupid maniac Jane.

"That was great, everyone. Well done," Deadwood commented afterwards, and fuck, Deadwood - put up or shut up, that's all I've got to say to you. I even stomped on his foot, walking past him. He grunted. Good.

"Ah, everyone? Just before we go - there's a few people from the studio audience lined up for autographs," he added, limping slightly.

So we stopped at the main doors, and it wasn't just a few people hovering around there, it was heaps of them. And as I looked it dawned on me that they were nearly all young. Like, teenage. They lined up in a fairly orderly queue, and they had cd's and bits of paper, like pages torn out of exercise books, and even bus tickets, and they were all kids.

"Hey, have you guys seen many bands live before?" I asked, and they nearly all shook their heads. For fuck's sake. Bands mostly play in bars, and kids can't get in!

"Edward - have we got any promo photos in the van?" I said, and dear Deadwood was onto it, producing a great sheaf from fucking somewhere, probably his ass, and some marker pens as well. Me, Lolly, and Boysville sat on the steps and started signing them, and we started talking to those kids.

"I got up at six o'clock to come here and see you," one said. "You are my idols."

"I've seen everything you've got on you tube. I never thought I'd get to see you actually _play_," another one said.

"I want to learn electric guitar but my parents won't let me. They say rock music is all just garbage," another kid said. Three or four chimed in claiming the same thing.

"My parents won't even let me have a guitar."

"Okay - here's what you can do," I said, reminding myself not to add "fuck" to every sentence. "Well, a couple of ideas. You could go to your parents and offer to do something to offset music lessons. Like - maybe volunteer in an animal shelter on the weekends. Something that's not just washing the family car for money, because that's really mercenary. If they're going to agree to you learning classical or jazz - hey, do it! You might find you like it. And if not - you're still learning an instrument and getting a feel for music. What you choose to play once you know where middle C is is up to you. Or, go to the music department at your school and ask if you can borrow equipment and play at lunchtime. Teach yourselves. Practice every day you can, and then play your parents something you know they'll like. They've gotta be impressed at your commitment. If they still don't like it - well, I don't know. But hey - they can't stop you singing, or writing lyrics. Sing when you're out of the house, and write down whatever ideas you have. Music just comes to you if you're chosen by it. Don't be frustrated - there's an outlet, even if you have to wait. I never had any lessons - and look at me!"

Yeah, well, maybe don't. Shit - absolutely don't. I have got to be the worst fucking role model of all time.

And then I sat there, stunned, realizing from the shining clear-skinned and not so clear-skinned faces grouped around us like piranhas, that that was a part of what we did, me and my band of merry men and Lola. We weren't famous - we weren't in magazines or on the charts or anything, but nannynet wasn't blocking us, and these kids could google us and be inspired and influenced to take up arms, or instruments, and join the legion. The legion of music, in all its splendid and multifarious forms.

Shitballs.

"Smoking is bad for you. And eat broccoli," I said hastily. Fuck. Don't fucking aspire to be anything like me, no matter what you do. Isabella Swan = Fuckup. I signed the last thing for the last fan, and three hours in the van was looking good. Better than this.

"Uh - maybe we could talk to Carlisle about some all-ages shows?" I said to Edward from the seat behind him, once we got moving. Because like, those kids could forge their own paths. It wasn't like they'd follow mine.

"Good suggestion. I'll tell him," Super-son said.

"Maybe freebies? Kids don't earn any money. I'll fucking train myself not to fucking curse so much," I said.

He gave a mild snort. Yeah, I've never heard _you_ swear, Eddie-boy. But we weren't talking about him.

Then home was on the horizon, and getting closer by the mile, bringing with it an end to the forced proximity to weirdos, dweebs, farters and automatons. Thank fuck. Forced proximity to a luscious silver-locked beauty was always welcome, though.

I emailed Lolly, who was in the front seat.

"_Darling?_" I wrote.

"_Don't you darling me. I saw the way you were looking at Jane back there. You wanted to sit on her face."_

_"Yes I did, Sappho, but only if I had your boobies in my mouth at the same time. How are you feeling?"_

_"Seasick."_

_"When did you last talk to James?"_

_"Oh, God - I spoke to him this morning, but I feel like I last talked to him months ago."_

_"Do you want to come to my place this afternoon and tonight and leave seeing him until tomorrow?"_

_"I can't. That wouldn't be fair. He's expecting me and I can't be a coward and not turn up."_

_"You're not a coward, Lolly. I miss you. Fucking stupid arbitrary rooming dictator nonsense. How is Tyler?"_

_"Don't mention Tyler. How is Jasper?"_

_"Don't mention Jasper."_

_"I won't if you don't."_

_"I won't if you don't."_

And home just sped closer and closer, spelling trouble untold for Lauren, and what for me? Freedom from three weeks of torment? Like it would all just fucking go away... Like if I didn't actually have either Gog or Jax in my field of vision any more they wouldn't haunt me...

_"Lollipop, if I don't bring up he-who-must-not-be-named when I speak to you, does that mean he's not an issue?"_

_"If I don't bring up they-who-must-not-be-named are they not an issue? What do you reckon?"_

Me and my Lolly needed resolution in our individual circumstances, but I suspected it wasn't an easy thing to come by. Just because I told Jax I wasn't going to be his girlfriend didn't mean it was all tidy and I could file it away under, "No further action required." Oh Christ. That's exactly what it did mean. No fucking further action. Damn.

But once Lolita had spoken to James about ditching him, it's not as if she'd be over it in a flash and all new and bouncy. She'd be _scathed_. Deeply. Final decisions are not the fucking end of anything.

However I could ruminate on all this tomorrow, and for the rest of forever and a day. Or I could settle things, one way or another. Ha. I could fucking try.

Edward dropped us at our addresses one by one, and somehow I was second, although that was out of order. He didn't want me to be last, and alone with him.

"I'll be back for you in three hours," he said, handing over my bag like there was no fucking unfinished business, no unspoken _stuff_, and everything between him and me was all hunky-dory. Jesus - was he that dense? Or was I?

And hello crappy little apartment - chaos barely contained, with its walls too close together, and full of remembrances. I always kept everything - even receipts from the store for cans of minestrone and sachets of laundry powder, because you never know when stuff is going to come in useful. There might be an apocalypse, and those things will be in short supply.

I picked my way across the floor and cleared some magazines from the sofa, sitting down. Home. This is it, Bella, you're back. How fucking depressing. This place needed an overhaul - _I_ needed an overhaul. Three hours?

Lolly and I had planned our outfits weeks ago for this last show, and we'd be pulling out all the stops, no holds barred. Defying convention, I'd gotten a pile of goodies ready for the big night before I'd even left for the tour de force, and the pile sat next to me mocking me with its forethought. I lifted my leg high and gave it a kick, knocking it down. Whoops.

There was still a bit of preparation to do before tonight, though. I boiled some water in a pot because kettles are for people who use them, and I am not one of those. I put teabags in the boiling water, and pulled them out and left them in a saucer to cool down. I didn't unpack - because who the hell unpacks? What would be the point of that? Oh, I'd need my bag for later. The contents were dumped near a stack of books, and next to a stack of cd's, and on top of a stack of magazines. Not far from a stack of folded clothes from the laundromat that I hadn't put away. Like - who's got the time? If your home is tidy you're neglecting your inner life. But Jesus, Bella - the stuff for tonight. Cram it all into the bag and do the zipper up, like a good little girl scout.

I needed a bit of rest in the midst of all this labor and I had to sit down for a while again, and then the teabags were cool enough to put on my eyes, to give them that refreshed and sparkling look. Only I still had the makeup on from this afternoon. No matter. It's easier to add more than to take any away.

Checking the clock, about fifteen minutes had passed. Only two and three-quarter hours to go. Enough time to go to my bedroom and lie down and - pay myself some attention?

I tried.

I thought of stupid uncontrollable ginger hair, prominent cheekbones and fuzz on an angular jaw, lazy green eyes and a mouth that didn't smile often enough. Artlessly, unknowingly elegant hands. Badly-fitting jeans hanging on hips they were simply too loose for, and encasing long, lean thighs. I took myself back to the past, and replayed the time our vehicle had been waiting at traffic lights, and I'd had my hand on a warm, firm chest. In my fantasy, no-one else was in the vehicle. Edward and I watched each other in the rear view mirror as my hand moved further inside his shirt, down his belly. His breath stopped as I reached the waistband of his pants. Stretching my arm further, and leaning over his shoulder now, my hand reached over the faded and soft denim, finding what it was seeking. Head turned towards me, he moaned in response, pushing his hips up, his dick growing into my hand, lengthening and stretching, and his eyelids drooping as he struggled to hold my gaze, his mouth open for mine...

My fingers were cold. I stuck them in my armpits for five minutes, shifting my hips restlessly to keep up the momentum, and tried again. It didn't work. Fuck! How is that even possible? With the arsenal I had, there should have been a fucking explosion. But, no. I was too out of practice. The equipment was under-maintained and now faulty. FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

I got up again and stalked around trying to spend time. A-ha! Apply nail varnish! That took three minutes.

Then I picked up my guitar and practiced and ruined my nail varnish as well as my guitar strings. Everything was fucking fucked.

I could have a shower. That would really wreck the professional makeup job from the tv studio - but really, who the fuck cared? Not fucking Gog, that was for sure. And not me.

The shower frizzed my hair, but while I was standing under it I started to feel better, and worked out a plan for myself for the rest of the time until Deadwood picked me up for the show tonight. Unfortunately, once I got out I thought I'd have an executive rest, and I guess I fell asleep. When there was a pounding on the front door I blinked for a full thirty seconds, trying to understand what the noise was.

"Bella, open up," a voice was yelling, and I clutched my towel around me, unsure what was going on. Was that the man of my dreams? Open up what? Oh, I'll open up all right. Just watch me.

"It's Edward - can I come in?"

Yes, of fucking course you can. Oh, you mean the door. Because I wasn't exactly compis mentis, I opened the fucking door. It could have been anyone, but luckily, it was my lovely Gog. He stepped in and he was taller than ever, since I was barefoot and he had shoes on.

"Jesus fucking Christ - you're not wearing anything!" he exclaimed. Actually, a bunch of textile manufacturers and retailers and related industry personnel would be prepared to argue that with you, Gog, but if you insist - I'll drop the towel, just so you'll be right.

"Yeah, well, neither are you," I replied, after I'd thought it through. So not true. He had a shirt on I'd never seen before - all sexy and removable. And fucking torn jeans.

"Bella - are you stoned?"

"I haven't been stoned since I was seven."

"Bella, there's an crisis. Please get dressed. You have to come out to the van. Where's your bag? God - at least is your bag ready?"

Oh, stop fussing! Crisis - schmisis. Was I fifteen point four seconds late? My bag was A-O-K to go, and I pointed to it. I left him freaking out in my living room and went to attire myself. Underwear, a retro-glamor evening dress in purple satin, messy hair pulled into an unruly ponytail on top of my head secured with diamante clips, and four-inch platform boots. Regarding myself in the mirror, I thought I looked a little quirky, a lot attractive, and flat-out irresistible.

Edward's mouth was still flapping like a fish with admonitions, but they dried up when he saw me.

"Uh." Blink.

"Er." Swallow.

"Mm." Gulp.

_So_ the correct response!

"Ah - Bella - Lauren needs you. She's in the van having some sort of meltdown."

"_Well, Jesus fuck - why didn't you fucking say so?_" I yelled, and I ran, leaving him reeling in my wake.

_._

_._

_._

A fish with admonitions. Imagine that.

I quoted the Eagles. I can't quite believe I did it. I don't know what I was thinking.


	24. Chapter 24

**anytime anywhere**

**ding dong ding yeah-eh**

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Twenty Fecking Four

You can't run very fast in four-inch platforms. That may be why they don't make an appearance on athletes' feet in the starting blocks in the Olympics, or when the winners stand on their victory platforms while medals are being handed out and national anthems are being played. Gog caught up with me in no time.

"Lauren won't speak," he said, worriedly. "She hasn't said a word since I picked her up - not even hello, and she's still as a statue, and I've got no idea what to do. Her face looks like a deathmask. I've tried everything to prompt her into talking but I'm getting nowhere. Something awful has happened."

"She just split up with her boyfriend," I informed him. "And she's hurting."

"Split up?" he repeated. "In between me dropping her off this afternoon and collecting her this evening?"

I knew exactly what must have taken place. I could picture Lola walking through her front door, James rushing to hold and kiss her, and Lola unable to let him. Because she loved him, and because she felt so guilty about what she'd done, she would have confessed on the spot. Then he would have recoiled in shock and pain and bewilderment, and they would have spent an hour or two, each trying to start a discussion and each stopping, lost in the despair. James would have told her that he just needed a bit of time, but that he forgave her and they could put it behind them and go on and be stronger. And then Lolly would have shakily but firmly insisted on the finality of it, just before falling apart, poor baby. Poor both of them.

And sure enough, out there in the van, my darling angel girl was ramrod straight behind the driver's seat, her normally summer's-day blue eyes changed to glittering chips of sapphire, her face set like a sad, sad rock, affirming everything Edward had said. She was trying hard not to cry, but as soon as I zoomed next to her on the seat she threw herself into my arms, shaking uncontrollably.

"Oh, Lolly, Lolly," I crooned, stroking her hair, and my stoic, staunch petal didn't unbend and just sob, or even answer me.

"Did you...tell James?" I asked, and felt her nod in assent against me.

"No tears, baby?"

"I can't."

"Can't?"

Pulling back, Lolly looked up at me, those eyes awash with oceans. "If I cry the way I need to, I won't stop. I'll bawl till midnight and beyond and it'll affect everybody. Tonight will be a disaster. So I'm just going to hold it in. Please don't tell the boys."

"Uh - I know they're dumb Lauren, but I don't think they're _that_ dumb. They're all going to know there's something wrong with you."

"Please, Bells. Promise me. If anyone offers any sympathy I'll go to pieces. So I'm just going to act like nothing's happened, and wear my happy face. See?"

Lauren assumed an expression that made her look constipated. Of course, I couldn't say so, because that would hurt her feelings.

"You look like you've got diarrhea," I said instead.

Dear Lolly half-smiled. "But do I look happy about it?" she asked.

From the front, Edward was following this exchange with equal parts concern and bafflement.

"Um, all right, I promise," I grudgingly said to Lolly, "And I won't say anything sympathetic. But only because I don't want your caterwauling ruining our evening."

"You're a true friend, Bells."

Edweird was still looking like he was having trouble understanding this perfectly normal conversation. He hadn't even put the key in the ignition. Well, show's over, buddy. This is not a parade.

"Drive on, if you would be so kind," I ordered loudly in my best snobby English accent. "My distinguished companion and I have a rather pressing engagement of a prestigious nature and as we are the guests of honor it just wouldn't do for us to be tardy." I sounded exactly like Minerva McGonagall. Is she English?

One side of Edward's mouth turned up in a cautious grin. Evidently he was relieved that Lolly appeared to be okay for the time being. "Certainly," he answered. "What's the address?"

"Oh, just turn right immediately," I said airily, although we were nowhere near a right turn. If he followed my order we'd go smack-bang into a wall.

"You should know the address," Lolly broke in sternly, in some weird accent that didn't resemble anything I'd ever heard. "There were explicit directions in the dossier. You did _get_ the dossier?"

Oh, God, Edward was surely going to be wondering what fucking planet we were from.

"I did get the dossier and I destroyed it, as per the instructions," he said. "However, I memorized the precise location of tonight's event. In order to confirm your identity I needed to ask the security question. I'm pleased to report you gave the correct response and we may now proceed as planned."

Well, whatever fucking planet had produced me and Lolly, the tiny seed that had grown into Edweird had found purchase in the same fertile soil.

"Gog, you are a fucking lunatic," I said. "Are you stoned?"

"I haven't been stoned since I was seven," came the answer, and we stole through the silent night like a panther on wheels, slinking around corners and under bridges and over crossings, until we were near the venue.

Lolly managed to detach herself from from my chest, and she sat up and looked around. "Hey - Edwin Powers - haven't you forgotten something? Three somethings? The smelly boys?" she demanded.

Our driver shook his head. "I was only told to collect the two of you. The smelly boys as you call them, are meeting us there."

"Oh, aren't we just _special_?" she smirked.

"_Precious_," I agreed, now impersonating Gollum. This was so much fun that Lolly and I said _precious_ to each other about fifty times until Edward finally cracked and told us to shut up for the love of fuck.

"He said the love of fuck. What does he mean by that?" Lolly began, but that was a conversational opener I was _not_ going to take her up on. Pointing urgently to the window behind her I said, "Oh look! A distraction!"

And things were going so well, with Lolly so thoroughly sidetracked from her woes and her slough of despond and her misery that we were clutching each other and giggling as we walked into the band room...

...Where Ben said, "Hi Bella-rella. Hi Flaurence. Hey - where's James?"

Oh, well, just fuck.

"Yeah - where's James?" Ron echoed.

I mimicked throat-slitting, meaning end of subject, but Ron looked horrified. "He's _dead_?" he gasped.

"No, he's not," Lolly said stiffly, her veneer visibly cracking, her bottom lip starting to tremble. All that cheering up of the Lolster on the way here was undone, until Michael the Idiot Newton turned around from where he'd been adjusting his guitar strap.

"Lauren, I must say you look lovely this evening," he said.

And Lolly's threatened topple reversed itself instantly.

"Sshh, everyone. Listen up. Urgent despatch. Michael's gone mad," she hissed.

"God, Mike - do you need to sit down? Lie down?"

"Get management to make an announcement over the p.a. and ask if there's a doctor in the house."

"We're going to have to cancel the performance. He'll be foaming at the mouth. He'll spray people."

"Edward - could you go and look for a medical kit? We might be able to hit him on the head with it."

"I think an insect crawled into his ear and laid eggs there. Now the larvae are eating his corpus crapsellum."

On and on we went at Mike's expense, until a voice interrupted us.

"Hello children. How are we all?"

Well - fuck. Carlisle Cullen - there he was, our beloved manager and the captain of our valiant and trusty ship. Just as fucking good-looking as ever, I couldn't help noticing. Gog never had a chance of being ordinary unless Esme had been whooping it up with the grocery boy - and why would you when you had Carlisle to bring it on home every night?

Everybody spoke at once, competing for the airspace and talking over the top of everyone else with no regard for courtesy while Carlisle looked more and more annoyed by the cacophony.

"Now I remember why I paid somebody else to spend three weeks with you," he grumbled, but he wasn't really too mad.

"You all know the tour's gone very well - the press has been good, reception's been positive everywhere, and you can be pretty pleased with yourselves," he said. "Edward has been speaking to me daily, giving me reports, so I'm up to speed with everything that's happened."

"I bet he didn't tell you about the time Lauren farted from the back seat and it was so powerful the van went into warp drive," Ron remarked.

"I bet he didn't tell you we sacked Ron after a popular vote, which was unanimous," Lauren retorted.

The others started up again, but I was momentarily quiet, wondering if Edward had mentioned what I'd gotten up to, or what he _thought_ I'd gotten up to - specifically, the panty-shredding in the van incident.

And inevitably, Carlisle zeroed in on the fact that I'd stopped talking, since I am normally so loud.

"And you, Ms Swan? Anything to impart?"

"Not really."

"Dramas? Triumphs? Vicissitudes?"

He could be a fucking wanker sometimes. Like son, like father.

"Nope. Plain sailing all the way."

He hrrmphed me, because of course, he knew me very well.

"Good. So, how are you feeling?"

"Storm-tossed and exhausted," I answered truthfully, but I was faring much better than Lauren, though she was doing a really good job of sticking to the happy-face plan.

"I'm sure you are - but you can sleep for twelve hours tonight. It's actually nice to see all of you again - you bunch of degenerates. It's been very quiet around my office."

Yeah, I bet it had, except for the continuous phonecalls to and from Deadwood with a litany of complaints listing The Misdemeanors and Misconduct of Bella Swan. Drunken swimming. Vomiting while being interviewed on the radio. Getting kicked off a golf course. Being found in the wrong room, in the wrong bed. Existing.

"Now, remember everyone, tonight's show is being recorded. Relax and have fun, and nobody make any mistakes," our chilled-out, evercalm and reassuring manager announced.

No pressure.

"We can edit mistakes though, boss, can't we?" Mike said flippantly.

"We can edit _you_, Michael," Lolly responded, and before any more altercations could get going again, Deadwood bustled us away for soundcheck.

Walking behind Lolly and admiring her ass, I though she _was_ rather lovely. She and I had wardrobe-conferenced ever so briefly, of course, because the world would tilt right off its axis and simply end if we didn't, and she was wearing a cheongsam styled dress in a shade of pale aquamarine contrasting very nicely with my purple. We made quite the jeweled pair, mincing on to the stage just as the FLM's were finishing. Sheesh, they sounded good. They fucking looked good, too. The Jaxinator was head-to-toe in black, and all damn skinny and delicious enough to lick up and down like an ice-cream cone.

"Darlin," he said to me, with a grin that would surely qualify for being awarded its own zipcode by the USPS. He wanted to say more, too, but someone had their hand on the back of my waist propelling me forward.

"Our time is limited Bella, and this soundcheck is very important to set levels for the recording," said He-Who-Should-Be-Defied.

Yeah, right. I had to stand around bored off my brain while every single fucking thing was checked and re-checked. The kick drum - hit it, one, two, one, two. For about seven years. The snare, one two, one two. Another seven years of my life I would never fucking get back. Toms, Cymbals. Bass. Guitar. Clean sound. Overdriven sound. Keyboards.

"Okay, Bella, sing for me please," Sam's voice came through the foldback, from way down where he was standing at the mixing desk, holding a mic to speak into.

"La la la," I said.

"Thank you Bella, if you're happy with that. Lauren?" Sam said. Oh, Jesus - I'd irritated Sam. I shouldn't ever, ever do that. I started singing but he'd moved on. Lauren was trilling like a canary and I was, just for a change, being a dick.

"Ready now, Bella?" Sam asked, because this was after all, something we had to get right.

I duly sang, properly, and then Sam said he was ready for a whole song. Then another. A quiet one, a loud one. This fucking soundcheck was fucking taking longer than our set, but finally, it was done. We could all go and have dinner somewhere and reconvene in a couple of hours. We could even go home if we wanted.

"Lollipop? Cocktails?" I asked my princess.

"_Mock_tails for you," corrected Big Ears, who just couldn't seem to be out of periphery when I didn't want him there, despite managing to be well out of reach when I did want him.

"Sure. I feel like a couple of Screaming Orgasms," Lola said.

"What I wouldn't give for a Slow Comfortable Screw Against The Wall," I answered.

Big Ears didn't respond.

The boys all spoke up and wanted burritos, but if I ever had a burrito again in my life I'd throw it right up. And Lolly and I just wanted to be together. We went and found a noodle bar and shared a plateful of soy sesame noodles.

"You doing okay, sweetie?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah. You coming back to my place tonight?"

"Oh, Bella, is that okay? I just _couldn't_ go back to the apartment."

"If course it is. I've already told you. You can stay with me as long as you like."

So that was settled, and now we had some serious getting ready to do. The rest of the band may have thought we were already in our outfits for tonight - but boy, did they have another think coming. Leaving Deadwood another of my informative little notes, this one saying, "Lauren and I have been abducted by aliens. Tell the police to look for us underground in Nevada, love B!#$%", us girls locked ourselves in a convenient bathroom and got to work.

He found us a while later, and banged on the door, stating, "Onstage in fifteen. Be back in the bandroom in ten."

"Yessir," Lauren sang out.

It had been barely seven before the door shook on its hinges, and Deadwood's dulcet tones announced, "Band room _now_!"

"Be right there!" I called. We had no fucking intention of going to the bandroom. We were planning a grand entrance, right onto the stage. But fucking Edward stayed hammering on the fucking door.

"I said _now_, girls," he warned.

"Yes, yes. It's all under control," Lauren answered.

"_Do I need to break this door down?_"

Oohh. He sounded madder than I'd ever heard him. I bet his eyes were flashing. I wondered if he was breathing hard. That fucking self-control of his was seriously on the verge of disintegrating. How commanding. How sexy.

Lauren and I slung jackets around our shoulders and came out of our chamber of secrets, brushing silently past Edward the Irate, and went to side of stage. We had one thing left to do, which involved affixing our headgear, and we did it right there, before we went on. The lights were down, and everything was black. When the faders brought the lights slowly back up, our boys were in position, looking for us. We'd cued our crew, but nobody else, and now we went into action. Spotlights threw a stunning bright glare at the curtains we were waiting behind, and out we stepped, Lolita and I in all our glory, as the Wedding March blared out over the sound system.

I was in a strapless, mini, ivory colored sheath of a dress which was swathed in yards and yards of organza so fine it made me look like a gift awaiting unwrapping. There was a row of bows down my back, and trails of the delicate fabric swirling softly behind me almost to the floor as I paced regally. Lolly had artfully and painstakingly backcombed my hair into a beehive shape, adding extensions of fake ringlets with a few wispy tendrils escaping to frame my face. I wore a tiara as well, with a veil descending from it and flowing behind me. I looked fucking breath-taking, I knew it, and the audience were dumbstruck.

And the equally breath-taking Lolita paced beside me in the exact same outfit, but scarlet, with the same hairdo, only with flaxen strands tenderly drifting along her pale cheeks. She looked aflame. We were Snow White and Rose Red, but not for the Disney crowd, no fucking way. Perilously high stilettos adorned our feet, and our legs were wrapped in fishnets - mine white, Lolly's red. We both had smoky, smudged, kohl-rimmed eyes, and half a pound of lipstick on each, and I reckon we appeared downright fucking dangerous, like Brides of Dracula. Like we could fuck a man, and then each other, and then want blood. I saw Mike's jaw drop, and beyond him saw Jax and Tyler, both agape. Thank you gentlemen. We reached centrestage, spotlight trained on us, and stood facing the back of the auditorium and beyond, my arm bent at the elbow and my forearm parallel to the floor, Lolly's hand resting on mine. Chancing a peek back to where we'd walked from, I was rewarding with seeing Deadwood watching me. This time, he wasn't inscrutable. He was - what? Before I could quite analyze it, the strains of the church-organ music faded away, and Ben managed to start the first song.

By now the audience were responding. Someone was throwing flowers at me and Lolly. There was thunderous cheering. I was passed a bar coaster in between songs, which I took and held up. Someone had written "Marry me, both of you!" on it, and a phone number. I murmured, "Sorry, we're taken," and we went into the next song. I was feeling every fucking word I sang, and feeling every fucking beat like it was my pulse. We all were - it was the magic, the transcendence, the bond, the one fucking heart we all shared that enabled us to do this together.

And this was our home crowd. So many familiar faces, so many people singing all the lyrics right along with me. At one point I held the mic out towards the audience and they joined voices in a whole chorus. Awesome. I was getting tingles down my spine from how right and amazing it all was. By the last song, I'd had nowhere near enough. Fuck. _Fuck_!

But that was it, time was up, and much as everyone loved us, they loved the Monsters, too. We filed offstage, and Jax caught my hand.

"Jesus fucking Christ, sweetheart," he said, and brought his hands to my face, cupping me tenderly. "I love you," he added quietly, and I thought, "Oh, shit. Oh, _shit_," but when he kissed me, it was on my forehead, the way you'd kiss a child. He was letting me know that he accepted what I'd told him the day before. He'd said so anyway, but fuck, the reassurance was welcome. Behind him, Darkwood was frowning, and seemed to waiting for something. Oh. I passed Jax, and Deadwood fell into line with me. He'd been waiting to escort me.

"That was an impassioned performance, Bella," he said, which was the nearest he'd ever come to a compliment, or even a fucking _comment_ on one of our shows, but shit, I wasn't about to say anything critical right now. I was fucking floating above the ground.

"Thank you," I answered, and stopped. He stopped too. My heels added five inches to my height, and from here, he and I were as close to eye to eye as we could ever be unless we were lying down. What a fucking beautiful view. His expression flitted through several changes as I explored his face.

"Did you want to say something?" he asked, but I didn't. I just wanted to commit him to memory, because he'd said he wouldn't see me after the tour. That meant after tonight. My entry into the virtual cloister was fast approaching, and to keep me sustained during what would no doubt be many lonely man-free months ahead, I needed a detailed, accurate image seared onto the visual part of my brain. His fucking, fucking hair - dark brown, but streaked with golden glints under certain lights. His brows, his eyes, his lashes - oh fuck, just everything. Under my scrutiny he was starting to frown, and I was mentally photographing that too. His bossiness. How fucking peremptory he could be. How dictatorial.

"Bella?" he asked, puzzled now, and I was remembering laughing with him as we were driving along, trying to outdo each other with witticisms, our senses of humor so aligned. Memories of him singing came back to me, his voice so husky and soulful. And then that fucking night I'd twisted my ankle. The gentleness, the tenderness in the way he'd looked after me. His patience. His concern. My recollection of that night should have ended there, and it would have if I had any self-discipline, but no. Before I could stop myself, I thought of the kiss. The kissing. The kisses. My gaze dropped hungrily to his lips for less than an instant, and it was as though I could feel them again. Oh, Christ, I hadn't meant to do that. I swallowed.

"Jesus," he whispered, and I looked back to his eyes. "What are you doing?"

I wasn't doing fucking anything, but this little interlude in the corridor had gone on long enough. Exhaling at last, I stepped past him. Surely I'd be allowed a drink now? Who was going to fucking tell me that I wasn't? We'd finished our last show, so Lolly and I could get hammered and watch the Monsters, if she was in the mood. If_ I_ was in the mood.

We were in the mood all right, my nightmare fairytale sister and I. In the dark, down at the back of the room we slugged from the water bottles we'd filled up with champagne, and we danced our asses off, watching those fucking Monster boys getting their groove on. I told her I'd talked to Jasper, and turned him down.

"You're mad, but then I always knew that," she declared.

"Well, shit Lola - you might say that, but James is a proven orgasm generator, isn't he? That's not always what it's about."

"Yeah, but Jax is sweet and funny and hot and he likes you," she protested, and then hearing herself, she shut right the fuck up. James was all of those things too.

Back in the room after the set, the FLM's joined us, and so did half the fucking city. Carlisle was proud and beaming like he was personally responsible for our greatness, everybody was congratulating everybody else, and it was a free-for-all gratuitous I-heart-you-fest in there. Get me a bucket, seriously. And to push the barf factor off the scale, some girl walked in, and went straight to Mike, smiling. Nothing new there, except that she wasn't any sort of a skank, like the girls who barged up to him normally were. She had a bit of an overbite, she had a few extra pounds on her, and she was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt, instead of a miniskirt that didn't even cover her panties. She was so not his type.

She said, "Excuse me - could I interview you for an article I'm writing for my uni paper?" and Michael Newton Idiot Dork Supremo answered in his sleazy way, "Sure - why not?" before looking at her. When he looked at her he fell in love. I fucking saw it happen! He transformed before my very eyes in one second flat, and became Michael Newton, Human Being, Dork Supremo.

"Can I get you a drink? Come and sit down. Or would you like to go somewhere a little quieter? Oh, _fuck_, I didn't mean that like it sounded, I just meant... Oh, sorry about my language. Fuck. Pardon me. Here I am cursing away and I don't even know your name. Jess? Pleased to meet you, I'm Michael. Oh, you knew that. You're at Uni? What's your paper on?" He rambled and raved, although she was the one who was supposed to asking the questions. Doesn't life take some unexpected turns sometimes? Planets had aligned for him, the fucking dweeb. There was no way he was getting laid tonight because she was more than a little taken aback by his weirdness, but I had just witnessed the start of something beautiful. Or horrifying.

And thinking of things beautiful and horrifying, it was time I found Gog, because he and I had a showdown waiting to happen. His absence from the backstage party was conspicuous. Maybe he was counting money, or checking merch sales, or cowering behind a locked door in the men's bathroom, avoiding me. Maybe having seen out this tour-managing fucking hellbeast of a job he was off somewhere pursuing his real interest, like on a fucking flight to Beirut to be a Middle East correspondent. Maybe he was snorting fucking cocaine off a fucking pool cue up in the staff-only room, with the venue manager who was very appreciative to have had 800 payers past the front desk.

Another champagne went down very smoothly, as I pretended to listen to various people, and nodded whenever there was a gap. Champagne is golden, and nearly as good a friend as Lolita, but I wasn't feeling too friendly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jax shmoozing with people, and I saw Lolly shmoozing with people, and I just wanted a good old-fashioned fucking fight.

So where was my one true adversary?

I headed out into the corridor, wondering which way to go. Fuck it, instinct would guide me. Poised there for a second, I didn't even decide, waiting for my fucking lateral line to detect the electrical impulses from Gog, and then I took off.

I'd been in this venue plenty of times before, but only as a member of the audience. I had no idea of the way around the little corridors with all their corners and half-staircases, and lights not working in some areas, but I kept going until I found myself outside an office, just _knowing_ that's where he was.

And I was right. I burst in, and he stood facing me, mouth dropping open slightly in surprise at my dramatic entrance. Daddy Dearest was with him, and they had a laptop each, and enough pieces of paper to rewrite the Bible.

"Ah - Bella. I've arranged for Sam to take you home and he'll be ready any time you are," Carlisle said.

What? Deadwood is my fucking driver!

"Edward, could I have a word?" I asked. Like, a few hundred words. A torrent, in all probability.

"Edward and I are going over a few details and we'll be a little while. Is it anything someone else could help you with?" Carlisle asked.

Ah - no? "I really need to speak to Edward," I insisted stubbornly. "It's personal."

"It will have to wait until tomorrow."

"I won't be seeing him tomorrow."

"Well, next week then, Bella. Please excuse us."

"I won't be seeing him next week, either."

"Well, I don't know why not, Bella. He's not going anywhere, as far as I'm aware. Just ring him."

Not going anywhere? Funny, I'd had the impression Deadweird wouldn't be around.

Following Carlisle's statement, said Deadweird was strangely mute, not making a single verbal offering. I was strangely contained, not flying over the table to wring his fucking neck. Carlisle was strangely unaware that the fruit of his loins was the short-range target of a death-glare.

"Half an hour, Bella?" Deadweird offered into the awkward silence, but Cullen CEO demurred. "I'm sorry, Bella. We won't be finished here for a couple of hours at least. I know how tired you are. Sam is on standby. Give Edward a call during the week."

Sam had a baby. He must be missing her and his wife, and they must be missing him too. Carlisle was telling me to go home. I fucking hated him. But fuck, it was true I was tired. Mixed-up, and wasted and mashed-up and over it. And my Lolly was all frazzled, too. She and I could hang around here and get shabby - we could go out and get shabby - or we could grab some sparkly wine and be taken safely home. Getting shabby there meant bed was only a crawl away. While I'm not usually a pragmatist, I did think that the last idea was the best one. Besides, I had some nicely matured joints hanging round in my gig bag. Lauren and I could become one with the universe, drink bubbles until we saw stars and watch Killers and Dandy Warhols clips until the world supply of them ran out. Everybody else could get fucked.

I gave the door a bit of a slam, because you can't let an evil mastermind think they've gotten the better of you, and I went to find Rose Red and Sam. "_Give Fuckward a call during the fucking week_." Like I'd fucking call _Deadwood_ even if my life depended on it.

What an anti-climax. The fuck fuck. Back to the band room. Where is my pretty raspberry Lollipop bride?

Because, kiss me, Lola, I've turned.

.

.

.


	25. Chapter 25

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

installment of the twenty-fifith segment

Well, wasn't this all just fucked, fuckeder and fuckedest too? Lolly and I huddled together on my sofa, passing half a bottleful of méthode champenoise between us, and we finished it in about ten seconds. I got hiccups, and she burped. Fucking charming. Neither of us uttered a word - we were both too glum.

"So, rock and roll, eh?" I said after a while, opening another bottle which the God of Providence, myself acting as his able agent, had made sure it found its way into my bag.

"Huh. I was expecting sex and drugs," Lola commented.

"Jesus, you strumpet. You _got_ the sex," I replied. "What are you whining about?"

"Don't remind me. It was one of the lowest moments of my life."

"One of the highlights, you mean."

"Hmm. You know those guys who are so fucking quiet when they fuck you that you can't even tell if they're really into it, except that they don't stop?"

No. I hadn't actually fucked very many guys. I could count 'em on one hand, and still have a finger and a thumb left over.

"Yep," I said, because she knew my whole history anyway.

"Well, Tyler's not one of those."

"Jesus, you hell bitch. Stop your bragging."

Silence fell, and reigned supreme.

Until I heard the faintest sniffling and most elegant snorting, and glanced sideways to find poor Lolly finally succumbing to tears. She'd held out so long. Before my eyes she cried herself a river, and I gathered her up in my arms.

"That's it, baby, let it all out. You need this," I assured her, and Lolly just wept. She sobbed some words into the torrent, and J-J-Ja-ha-ha-hames made a frequent appearance, but I couldn't make out too much more. We were both inebriated after all, and exhausted, and I fucking love hotel beds, but tonight, after such a long time, my own lovely bed was only a room away.

"Come on sweetie, come on baby," I coaxed, and managed to haul Lauren up with me towards the bathroom. I didn't have a guest room, and the sofa was covered with the detritus of daily life, so while perching there for a short while was one thing - spending an entire night and hoping to sleep well was another. To be honest, both were unlikely. Even as I sat with Lolly something had been sticking into my bum which could have been a pizza box. It could have been various things, although from memory, I don't think it had been my 9-inch mini telescope, since that would have been unmistakeable.

So Lollipop and I both removed our veils and our high heels, and peeled our dresses off. I gave her some sleep shorts and a singlet and from somewhere in the fathomless recesses of my bathroom cabinet dug up a new toothbrush, which was a miracle every bit as incredible as the loaves and fishes curing blind people in the bible. A couple of minutes later she flopped down onto the bed, and was asleep so fast she didn't get under the covers. I arranged her limbs in a way that I hoped was comfortable, and I stroked her hair back from her face and pulled the coverlet up. Dear, sweet, tear-streaked angel - her eyelashes were fluttering straight away as if she already dreamed. Hopefully, she was in a place now that was a bit happier than the suckfest of breaking up with your longterm boyfriend because of the vague but unsettling notion that you're too contented with him.

Sleep didn't come to me quite so easily, because I was all in a whirr. Why the fuck was I such a feck of a moron, wanting a man who was puzzling and contrary and inexplicable? Maybe the discontent with contentment factor was in operation with me, too. It wasn't as if Gog could make me _remotely_ contented, he was far too fucking annoying. But the point was moot anyway, as in not applicable, since Gog was _so_ fucking elusive, he had elused himself right out of my periphery. Hell, my fucking stratosphere. I was drunk, and I was pissed off, and Carlisle had suggested I call Gog tomorrow, or next week - the hell I will! Let him come fucking crawling to me!

I pictured that, but first time round, Gog was wearing too many clothes. I pictured him crawling to me with less clothes on, which was definitely better. Picturing him crawling with no clothes at all was the best of the lot. Where was I, during the crawling? On the bed? On the floor? I needed to set up the scenario, and work out what I was wearing, and what we were saying, and whether we'd just been arguing or not. Arguing with Gog was definitely a winner - and then I looked over to Lolly guiltily. You just absolutely can NOT put yourself into a situation where you might so much as begin to think about thinking about a form of release when your BFF is snuffling cutely a couple of feet away in your queen sized bed, because that makes you a horrific mutant.

Bean-flicking was never whatsoever on the agenda, and naked Gog on his hands and knees before me was banished.

Not long enough later, at some time on Sunday afternoon, I stirred groggily and evaluated the severity of my headache. Not too bad. My mouth felt like a cave in the desert that had been parched for centuries, and my tongue was stuck to my teeth, but I wasn't nauseous. I'd been dreaming of opening my fridge and finding juices and sodas in there, succulent fruits, and light airy confections with liquid centers. Reality was not going to live up to that though, because I knew my fridge contained pretty much nothing. Rolling out of bed I padded to the kitchen and filled up two glasses with tapwater, then padded back.

"Eeuurrgghh?" Lolly's voice croaked and I handed her the water.

"Uuunnggg?" she mumbled. Lord knew what that meant, but I didn't. Probably something like, "Clear a path to the toilet, I'm going to barf."

Well, you're a lightweight if you can't take a late night or two now and again, and a few mouthfuls of golden fermented elixir. Lolly and I are not lightweights in any way, so once we'd both cleared our throats and coughed seventeen times, and thrown back another half a quart of water each, we were ready for the next party.

"You look gorgeous," she commented to me, and it was true, I guess. So did she. There's a certain je ne sais quoi about tangled hair, pale faces that never see the sun, and soot-rimmed eyes. Models spend hours getting their hair and makeup to look just like this, and Lolly and I spent hours getting to look like this, too. But I bet we had more fun doing it.

"Any plans for today?" I asked her.

"Hang around the mall and frighten people?" she suggested.

"Sounds like fun, but I don't really want to go anywhere. I feel like being a blob. Let's just blow some jays and watch movies."

"You have jays? And movies?"

"I got it all, babe."

"Food?"

"All except food."

"We're going to want to eat."

"Maybe. Have you got any money?"

"I don't think so. Have you?"

"Probably not. I've been dumping it in readiness for the cashless society."

While I scrabbled around drawers and shelves looking for coins and notes, Lolly went through our bags and between us we scraped together enough to order some Chinese takeout.

Over fried rice with prawns and pineapple, I waved my chopsticks at her and said, "You know, I kind of didn't catch some of what you said last night about James. Or any of it. You ready to go there again?"

"I liked your other idea. About the stoned. That's what I'm ready for, once we're done eating."

So we threw the stuff on the couch onto the floor, grabbed pillows and arranged them to look like we were in a harem, and lit up. We laughed our faces off all the way through DieHard. Then we watched DieHard2 and got stoneder and ate more rice. What a fucking great way to spend the day. Lolly wandered away and had a shower for about three years at some point in the early evening, using all the hot water, but this was very funny. My next ablutions were going to have to wait hours due to her selfishness, which was funny too. What really cracked me up though, was when I was rummaging through my tour bag, which of course I hadn't unpacked yet, and found my phone in the pocket of the jacket I'd worn yesterday. Deadwood had left a thousand voicemails.

"Jesus - Lolly - would you look at this?" I giggled, and we listened together.

The first one was midday. "Hi Bella - maybe you're not up yet. You wanted to speak to me about something? Give me a call when you wake up."

"Still fucking ordering me around," I nodded to Lolly.

Number two, two o'clock. "Bella - whatever you wanted to talk to me about - was it urgent? I'm at the venue seeing that the hired recording gear is all returned, but I'll be home soon. Call me in an hour or so."

Two-oh-five. "Bella, it's just occurred to me you probably wanted to know when you can hear the recording from last night. Carlisle's going to have a meeting with you all next week and we'll have cd's ready for you then, or we can email tracks through separately. Let me know what you'd prefer."

Four o'clock. "Bella, I haven't heard from you yet. I hope everything's all right. I know Sam dropped Lauren off with you instead of taking her home. Please get in touch and let me know things are okay with you both."

I stopped laughing. "Why's he fucking calling every ten seconds like this? What's his issue?"

Lauren shrugged. We were too fucking stoned to worry about it, quite frankly. I was way more worried that we didn't have any chocolate.

"You know what I think?" Lauren asked. "He's trying to be nice."

"Nice! Deadwood wouldn't know 'nice' if it bit him on the ass."

"_You'd_ like to bite him on the ass."

"As if."

But, really, or should I say _butt_ really, this was worth some mental picturing, and I lost track of talking to Lauren momentarily, and then I guess the long day of inactivity and idleness took its toll. One minute I could just see Gog standing in front of me facing the other way, with me watching the breadth of his shoulders, the inward slope down to his waist and hips, the stupid, ill-fitting jeans he wore that simply weren't tight enough... and next thing I knew it was pitch black and the middle of the night and I was lying close to a warm, soft and fragrant body, with arms wrapped around me and a nose pressed lightly against my throat.

"Lauren Mallory - Jesus! Stop making fucking moves on me!" I yelped, which was enough to rouse her to a sleepy, "Huh?" and I managed to haul her up and get the two of us to my room. By the time we'd gotten in there, after banging ourselves on the door frame hard enough to bruise, and falling on to the bed nearly knocking our heads together, she'd woken up a bit more.

It was 2am, and I reckoned I'd already had about six hours' sleep. Deadwood had distinctly told me to call him when I woke up, and he didn't like to be disobeyed. It made him go all flinty-eyed with annoyance. Oh gosh. Better not disobey the Fuhrer.

"I have to call Gog," I told her.

"Of course you do," she answered. "And it's about fucking time, if you don't mind my saying so."

I hit his number. Half-a-ring, and holy shit, he answered.

"Bella?"

"Oh, yes, Edward, it's Bella. Me. I thought I should call you. I hope you weren't asleep."

He fucking can't have been, because he couldn't have answered that fast.

"No, actually I wasn't. What is it? Is everything okay?"

"Well, you left a message for me to call."

"I meant at a sociable hour. It's the middle of the night. Why are you ringing me now? Is anything wrong? Do you want me to come over?"

Lolly could hear him because she had her head next to mine. "There were two implied words you may have missed in that sentence," she muttered to me. "_All_ and _you_. The hidden subtext was Do you want me to come_ all _over_ you_."

"Oh, yes, _of course_. Thank you," I said drily to her. "Uh - Edward?" but he didn't reply. The line had gone dead.

"Oh, crap Lola, fucking unreliable fucking network. The signal cut out," I said, and then froze. When I'd said "Oh, yes," I'd been replying to Lauren. What if Edweird thought I'd been replying to him? What if he was actually on his way to my apartment?

I dialed him back.

"I'm in the car - I'll be about twenty minutes," he said.

"No, Edward, really, I'm sorry, that was a misunderstanding. Everything's fine - Lauren and I are perfectly okay. We just walked into a wall and hit our heads but we don't need any help. You don't need to come here, honestly. Sorry."

He was silent, and I knew he was clenching one hand on the wheel, gritting his teeth slightly, and worrying at his hair with the other hand. I knew he was taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment, then letting it out in an almost inaudible sigh. I knew because I'd seen him do those things when I said something that bothered him.

"I've already left, Bella. I might as well come and check on you."

Jesus - check on me for what? Unpaid parking fines? Headlice?

"How is Lauren doing?"

"She's not saying much so I'm just giving her space. We hung out today and watched movies."

"How are_ you_ doing?"

"Oh, you know me. I'm just the cat's whiskers."

"Keep talking to me, please, or I'll fall asleep at the wheel," he said then.

"What do you mean? Didn't you go to bed well before sunup and not get up until after sundown?" No, if I thought about it, I knew perfectly well that he didn't because he spent all fucking day on his phone trying to get hold of me.

"I was just about to go to bed, Bella. I'd been finishing up a few things with the accounts."

"At this hour? You've been so tired, Edward. What the fuck are you doing driving around the city? You're a fucking danger to yourself. I'm going to tell Esme to take your car keys away. I'm going to tell her to send you to your room without any supper. I'm going to tell her to give you a glass of warm milk and put Brahms lullaby on repeat and tuck you in with a teddy bear and a fluffy bunny rabbit."

"It's a bit late for all that now."

And a minute or two later, he was at the door. Fuck, he was tall. Fuck, he was handsome. Fuck, what was he doing at my place in the wee small hours?

"Really, you didn't need to come here. Everything's fine. Lauren and I are perfectly okay - " I started, but he brushed past me, and glanced around.

"A rare glimpse of the wild Swan in her natural surroundings," he observed.

Oh yes, my decor. I subscribe to a style known as Interior Chaos. Or Outright Mess, to be more descriptive.

"It calms the mind," I explained.

"I've noticed what a calm mind you have."

Then Lolly popped her head around the door of the living room, followed by her body, and she looked just a Lolita - all little girl pale limbs and slumbrous eyes and unbrushed hair. She looked pretty damn seductive, actually. Edweird was being very occupied carrying out a visual inventory of the apartment while he greeted her, and he wouldn't look at me at all. Too absorbed by the Urban Decay, and no doubt composing a judgement which he would deliver in due course.

"Would you like anything to eat or drink?" I asked politely, hoping like fuck he'd say no, because we had nothing but some leftover vegetable chowmein, and a bottle of unchilled Pinot Noir. He declined, and still kept looking about the room.

"As you can see - " I said.

"Hmm? Pardon?"

He finally turned to me, frowning of course, in typical Edweirdian fashion. He fucking _always_ frowned when I was in front of his eyeballs.

"I suppose you do seem to be all right here, apart from the damage caused by the tornado," he said.

"Oh, there'll be a relief team around soon."

"Good." God, he was tired, because he was barely able to muster a response.

"Oh, Gog, sit down."

"Where?"

Lolly and I bustled and cleared a bit of space, and I pushed him onto the couch. He didn't resist at all.

"I _am_ tired. I'll just rest for ten minutes, and then I'll go home," he mumbled, but his eyes were almost rolling back.

"You can't drive anywhere in the state you're in. You'll have to stay here," I said firmly. Behind him, Lolly was pointing meaningfully towards my bedroom, apparently keen on the idea that I should take him in there. Was she fucking kidding? Take him in there and do what? The man was a wreck. I got both his shoes off, and shoved at his legs to get them up onto the cushions, incorporating a surreptitious thigh grope that he couldn't possibly have noticed. Lean and very firm. I should make a note of that somewhere.

"Bella, I'm sorry to intrude on you like this - " he was saying quietly, but the weariness was overtaking him now. Appearing beside us Lolly handed me a cotton blanket which I drew lightly over him.

"You said something about a lullaby?" he murmured as I lifted his head gently, easing a pillow in underneath.

"Brahms. I don't have a cd."

"Sing for me, then. Not Brahms. Something else."

I whispered, "Sshh," and moved behind him, kneeling at the arm of the couch, from where I could give him one of my head massages, but even more softly than I'd done it last time. In the quietest voice I have ever used I sang Mazzy Star songs to him, and kept singing even though I knew he was asleep almost immediately. It's the most soporific music I know. It's also fucking crazy music to have sex to, if anyone can go that slow. He was asleep and I was aching, and Lauren had stayed away for a while, but she came back.

"You. Me. My office. Now."

Turned out her office was the 24-hour laundromat half a block away, and we had_ loads_ of laundry. Leaving Gog to dreams what may, she and I went out into the night.

"Well?" she demanded, while I was scrabbling around for quarters.

"Well, yourself."

"Well, I'm at the end of something - you're at the start of something. You have to go first."

"What the fuck am I at the start of? The delicate cycle?" I was sorting my underwear.

"Things probably are a bit delicate. But Bella - there is a fucking beautiful man back at your apartment right now, who was suffering such withdrawals after not seeing you for twenty-four hours that he drove to your apartment in the middle of the fucking night - and you want him, too. You took your time deciding, and he probably doesn't even know what you decided because you're so retarded that way - but he still turned up. Fuck - if anyone was that romantic to me! I'd go him so hard I'd leave scars. What are you going to do, Bells, when he wakes up? I can clear out, you know, quite happily, and leave the two of you alone."

It wasn't that simple, I just knew it. It couldn't be. Deadwood had charged through the night to my place because he was still on the payroll, and Lauren and I were still his responsibility, and he had to make sure he hadn't let Carlisle down by not watching us like a hawk.

Change the subject.

"What about James? Tyler?" I said.

"Oh. James is upset and hurt and - God, I never meant to hurt him. Fuck. I should have broken it off months ago, but everyone knows relationships are cyclic - I was just on a down and it would pick up again. Then Tyler - I thought he was a distraction, but no more than a blip. I mean - we all think rockstars are attractive, right? But then I talked to him, and it was more than just his appearance. But I don't know whether he happened to turn up at just the time I was feeling I had to finish with James - or whether it's deeper than that. I do know that I can't go from one relationship straight into another one. I need to be on my own. I need to be over James before I can be with anyone else. If Tyler's still around, and free, and interested by the time that I'm ready - I don't know. I'm not thinking beyond every tomorrow, really."

"Okay. Tomorrow. Jesus - what's going to happen tomorrow? With Edweird?"

Lolly took my chin in her hand and stared at me hard. "Why are you so reticent about this, Bells?"

"Because..."

"Because it matters?"

"Yes."

"I knew it. You're in love with him. And he practically dragged himself from the jaws of death to be with you tonight."

"_Death?_ That's so exaggerative. And speculative. And fantastical. You really think so?"

"Well, shit, Bells, he's _tired_ to death, isn't he?"

Our laundry took a while, especially since we were so careful about separating darks and lights, and the day was creeping up on us by the time we left. Gossip magazines had filled in the time nicely between Lola's ridiculous assertions and our inevitable sock fight. You can't go to a laundromat and not have a sock fight. Lolly was trying to claim my beige and camel-striped knee-highs as her own - the bitch! - but meanwhile her zebra socks were in my basket. The management asked us to leave even though we were the only customers, because he thought the way we were yelling at each other and swearing was for real. It was actually, and if Lauren Mallory ever tried to steal my fucking favorite items of hosiery ever again I'd have to fucking kill her.

It wasn't even the crack of dawn yet, and we had to decide what to do. Dear Fuckward needed to sleep for at least a week, and while I could go back and gaze at him, and his sleep-boner would probably keep me entranced for hours on end, I'd get a cramp if I just sat around watching him, and if Lolly perved on him in the slightest I'd have to slap her.

"Let's go busking," I suggested, and it was the best idea I'd had in years. We crept back into my apartment, dropped off our bagfuls of clean clothes, grabbed my guitar, and slipped out again, heading for the train station. In a few hours we'd made over sixty bucks, from singing, telling jokes, and having a go at the occasional tapdance. My flamenco dancing was quite a moneyspinner.

Counting the change, Lolita announced, "Bells, let's go the casino, and triple our money!" but I knew for a fact that her card-playing skills amounted to zilch, because the boys sometimes liked to play poker when we had a couple of hours free. Lolly and I always lost.

"Or we could gamble it on the stock exchange," I offered instead, but we went and bought juice and bagels and ground coffee and milk, and then wended our weary way home to check on last night's uninvited guest.

There he lay, and even Lolly sighed at his beauty.

"Oh, Lord," she said. "Name your first child after me?"

"Lorenzo? I'll think about it. Name your first child after me."

"Bill. Yeah, right."

It was only about six in the morning and barely light. We'd built up such a sleep debt over the last couple of weeks that we were ready for bed again. I glanced over at Deadweird and thought - well, I didn't think. I wasn't capable of thinking anything, other than that climbing on top of him was probably inappropriate. I zoned out, trailing along behind Lola to my bed.

And hours later Lorenzo and I woke up and found Deadwood _still_ asleep. She and I sat on the living room floor, backs against the couch, and put on a dvd. A silent movie. Nosferatu. We suppressed squeals and giggles, out of courtesy to our guest who was out for the fucking count. We paused it at one point because Lolly wanted the bathroom and I wanted a glass of water. Standing at the sink with the faucet on, I could have jumped out of my fucking skin when she crept up from behind with her hands on my shoulders and her teeth at my neck. Shrieking, I leapt backwards, registering an instant later that she had let out a very unladylike grunt at the same time as demonstrating previously unknown ventriloquist skills by yelling from the bathroom. She also felt very broad and firm, unlike this morning in bed, and she had - _stubble_? Oh fuck.

"You think you're funny?" I asked furiously, turning on Gog, who of course, was standing behind me.

"Yep," he said, straight-faced.

"You fucking deviant. You scared the shit out of me!"

He wasn't repentant in the least.

"I'm hungry," he shrugged. "I got inspired by the movie."

"You're batshit."

"Probably. Anyway, thank you for your sparkling hospitality. I'll mosey on along, now."

"Oh, we went out and got food, since there was a hog in the house. You might as well stay for breakfast - brunch, lunch - whatever it is." Please. You look so tousled and rumpled - and one of your shirt buttons has come undone. Don't notice. _Don't do it back up!_ Holy fucking shit.

His chest hair was reddish. Like, reddish enough for me to want to get my mouth onto it. Fuck, I wanted to get my mouth on it even if it was fucking purple.

"So - brunch, lunch - guess I was out to it for quite a while, was I?" he asked me as I pushed him back towards the sofa, while Lolly fired up the toaster for the bagels.

"Two whole decades, Rip van Winkle. It's the year 2031 and mankind has colonized Mars."

"Funny - you don't look any older."

"Oh, I became scientifically immortal one September, a few years ago."

"I don't feel any older."

"Oh, you're immortal too. Cryogenics."

Lolly and I plied him with juice and coffee and bagels, and fuck, I loved to watch him eat. He wolfed down four of them. I loved watching the movement of his mouth and jaw, his lips and tongue, his fingers and hands and arms. Fucking pure porn. I will never be allowed into heaven because I'm such a perv, but I will take my fantasies to hell with me.

"Okay, Bella and Lauren, I'm sorry I came around and just collapsed. Thanks for letting me sleep here. Thanks for the food. I should get going now, but I'll be in touch," he said. "As I said, Carlisle's calling a meeting sometime during the week. He wants to make it a dinner, as a celebration that the tour went so well."

Did he look at me a bit longer than he looked at Lola?

"Don't forget to keep blogging, Bella so your profile stays active," he said.

He definitely looked at me longer than he looked at Lola.

I walked him out to his car.

"Will you need a lift to the meeting? I can come and get you."

Oh, like it was all so casual - just him and me, standing there, curbside - him in shadow and mysterious, me in the light. Oh, Gog, Gog, Gog. Could I do it right here, right now - ask you what the feck is going on in that clever, maddening, opaque, beautiful mind of yours? "Ripeness is all" according to Shakespeare, and soon I was going to pin Edweird down like a bug on a sheet, but I needed a bit of a breather after the tour. Sometime during the week would be just fine, since he was apparently going to be around after all, and I'd see him.

"Text me with the time. I'll be there," I told him.

"Sure."

Oh, sure...you just wait, Deadwood, Edweird, Edward, Gog, and whoever the fuck else you manifest as at any given time - in fact, every single fucking one of you, all together. Just wait.

There _will_ be a reckoning.

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Yes, I am working on the Six Weeks update, but you can blame-thank Dihenydd for this.


	26. Chapter 26

**Baby You Can Drive My Car**

Chapter Twenty Sex

In Which Lauren Speaks For All Of Us

"Bella, you know there are cupboards in your kitchen, right?" Lauren said when I went back inside.

"No. What's a kitchen?" I answered.

"The little room through that door right there."

"Oh, I never even noticed it. Fancy. What's a cupboard?"

"It's a receptacle for things. Let's optimize your space."

"You're speaking fucking Jupiterian."

Lauren was right about the "cupboards". They were wall to wall, and floor to ceiling. Fucking stupid things, taking up all that room. She dragged me down to the mall and around some storage solutions godawful place, full of containers, and she brought home a billion of them. Then she started sorting my worldly goods, and putting them in the containers, and finding places for them that didn't involve the middle of the floor. To add to the disarray, another of these "_cupboards_" had been discovered in the hall. Lauren put towels and sheets in it, which I liked to keep nicely displayed on exposed surfaces.

"Strange new worlds," I muttered with a shrug, but I had to admit, after a day and a half my apartment had inexplicably gotten a whole lot bigger. My sofa had gone from being a no-seater to a three-seater, and my books and cd's and dvd's were on shelves. It was completely disorienting of course, and without my usual guidance markers I got lost a couple of times just trying to get from one side of the room to the other.

And Lozzy discovered a folder somewhere amongst the debris of my past containing my school art brilliance. She insisted on a mission to some thrift stores to buy frames, and the next time I blinked my humble abode resembled the fucking Guggenheim. It was making my psyche falter, like stepping out on a iced-over lake, not knowing how thin the ice was. Bella? Tidy? Organized? Nope, couldn't reconcile it, although the terms Bella and newly-discovered-space rang like the most pleasant of wind-chimes.

Meanwhile she was doing okay, the Lolster, considering she had misery in her heart, though I constantly assured her she had a stalwart as a bedfellow. Keeping herself busy was working out great for the both of us - me, because I was getting a home makeover, and her because, well, she was giving me a home makeover.

James called a couple of times a day, and she'd be teary after speaking to him, but never unsure of her decision. Tyler didn't call because she'd embargoed him.

And let me see - how long was Bella allowed to go without having a call from Deadweird?

About ten minutes.

"Bella, there was a day's pd's that you didn't sign for. I'm going to need you to come into the office to complete the paperwork."

"Bella, remember that tv show? One of the kids you spoke to has sent a demo cd of a song they wrote asking for your opinion. I can convert it to mp3 and email it, or you can just collect it at the next band meeting."

"Bella, you know all those flowers you got that night? I had them delivered to a hospice and we've received a letter from the management and staff thanking us. Just thought I should let you know."

He was relentless. Like a swarm of locusts.

"Jesus, Lauren - he won't fucking leave me alone. But it's all work, work, work! We're having a meeting this week, aren't we? Couldn't he just type all this up and send it in an email?"

Smugness is an ugly personality trait, and Lolly's face covered in smugness dimmed her beauty somewhat.

"Told you. He loves you," she said, smirking.

"He doesn't, because he's not ringing up saying, "Oh, Bella, come and play my love trumpet", and by the way, when you do that smarty-ass smile you get a double chin, and your eyes go squinty," I told her. It was only right that she knew. Still - why did I have to get fifty thousand phone calls a day? I was trying to set my life in order, and the constant stream of interruptions simply wasn't helping.

The millionth time on Wednesday the phone rang, I breathed into it, "Oh,_ fuck_, I'm missing you. I can't stop thinking about you. I want us to make love."

The silence from my caller was deafening.

Then Edweird's voice, sounding choked, said, "Bella?"

And I responded, "Oh - _Edward_? I'm sorry, I though you were someone else. My mistake."

Lolly was muffling laughter.

"You've got caller ID," he stated, shakily.

"Oh, I know," I answered. "The ID said Gog, and I thought it must be God of Gorgeous, but it's actually Gremlin of Grouch."

I heard him take a deep breath, and then he said, "How's Lauren?"

"Why don't you call her directly? I'm not her answering service."

Another deep breath. "I will. Okay then. Band meeting is tomorrow, five o'clock, Carlisle's house. Do you need me to collect you?"

"Fuck no. Is that how you're trying to justify your exorbitant daily rate? Offering to drive people five blocks or so? Get a real job," I said, pressing end call.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. God, Gremlin, I will plaster you to the fucking wall, and then lick you all over and then lick you some more, until you're fucking screaming. Oh, yes. Can't fucking wait.

Although seriously, I would just have to hope that my perplexing see-saw fucking _nerves_ didn't take over next time I saw him and render me a fucking basket-case. I didn't know what it was about him that reduced me to a shadow of my usual glorious mess of a self. Oh hang on, I was still a mess. But I used to be a fucking cavalcade - laying waste and wreaking havoc! Now I was all about the big talk, but where Gog was concerned, very little follow-through. Jax didn't have this deletorious effect on me. Lolita was right - the discerning little minx. It was all because Fuckweird _mattered_. Color me screwed.

But hey, since Lolly and I had been on a bit of a detox, our livers were totally cleansed and in need of some actual sustenance. Butterscotch schnapps is the best, launching you into a voyage combining reality and unreality as it does, and it's all you need, really, to be as one with all things and in harmony with the universe.

Furthermore, in my newly discovered kitchen, there were these circular heat-dispensing units arranged in a little square, and I had experimented with scientifically altering the molecular structure of fresh food items using heat, and I believe I had invented cooking. Lauren claimed scornfully that this discovery was not new, but history is not written by the nay-sayers and deny-it-alls.

"Perhaps you'd like _raw_ sausage for dinner tonight, missy?" I suggested.

"Perhaps I would, as it happens. Is there any on offer?"

"I think there might be. Just dial T-y-l- "

"I'll dial _you_ in a minute."

"You're so gay."

"You wish."

We didn't have a sausage in the house, needless to say, and we were settling for eggplant parmigiana, which can be very nice when due diligence is exercised.

"Jesus, I hope Edweird can cook, and he won't mind that you can't," Lolita gasped after one mouthful, but she was full of crap, because it was delicious.

After our humble repast we settled back in the newly enormous lounge room and regarded one another.

"How long are you holding out for?" I asked her, and she knew exactly what I meant.

"At least another month, maybe more," she said. "How about you?"

"Oh, impossible to forecast, really. Before the end of muddlement, there's the hurdle of uncertainty, and the river of unknowing, and the mountain of doubt, and the forest of perplexity - I don't know. It'll be a long journey for our intrepid adventurer."

"Talking about yourself in that distancing way is bizarre, and you're not intrepid at all. You're chicken."

"I am not!"

Lauren started crowing, "buck buck buck," and luckily for her, I put this down to the alcohol, and not to her being a fruitcake. I could have called mental health services and had her taken away, I really could. It's not normal to impersonate a hen.

"What's the fucking difference then, between you and me, Ms fucking I-will-not-make-a-booty-call-for-another-four-whole-weeks?" I demanded.

"_You're_ not on the rebound, Bella. You are one single lady, and you have been for a while. You want Edward because you want him, not because you're worried about finding yourself alone after years of security in a relationship, and you're not just about to leap at the nearest guy."

"Don't give me your bullshit. You have no concerns at all that you might be using Tyler as an interim guy. You love his big dick."

"Has Edward got a big dick?"

"How would I fucking know?"

"You kissed him. Didn't you rub up against him? Didn't you get an idea of it then?"

"I kissed his_ mouth _you brazen slutbag! And no, there was no rubbing!"

Ah, memories. Longing. Romance. Lolly and I had to stop talking and smile dreamily for a while, each in our own little lust-bubble. Then we had some more butterscotch schnapps, because why? Oh, you don't need a reason. Those silly flask bottles from our local store were way too small, by the way. Lucky we'd had the common sense and foresight to buy two.

Taking what amounted to rather more than a sip, Lauren remarked, "Well. Party at Carlisle's tomorrow," as though I'd been capable of thinking of anything else.

"So I hear."

"You're going to make the jump, right?"

"Depends."

"On the fuck what? Remember Faith from Buffy? _Want, take, have_. Now there's a credo."

"Yeah, well, that's for people with superpowers."

Lauren fixed me with her beady eye.

"For Christ's sake, Bella," she said, and I knew from her expression something momentous was about to come.

"How long have I known you?" she demanded.

That was all? "You know exactly how long, darling. How dare you pretend to forget? You inwardly celebrate every anniversary."

"Three years. Shut up. How many boyfriends have you had in that time?"

"Seventeen."

"_Two_. What were their names? Oh, who even knows? You barely even liked either of them. You just thought you should have a boyfriend because you were lonely and horny and you were over being so single, and you picked the least_ threatening_ option each time. Neither of them lasted longer than five minutes or five months or something because there was so little to draw you to them in the first place."

God, her insights were unnerving and unwelcome. I might have been kidding myself about those guys, but apparently I hadn't been kidding Lollipops, shrewd observer.

"And now, Isabella Swan? There's someone around who isn't fazed by your crazy, who's strong and clever and actually gets you and your nutty humor, and, yeah, I know the Jaxinator's around as well and he's hotness incarnate, but babe - you don't need someone who's in a band, too. And let's be honest, Jasper is so fucking cruisalicious he would never stand up to you. He might give you what you need in bed, but he's on his own trip, along with all the gorgeous that he is. You and him would fly in different directions sooner rather than later. You need someone grounded in reality. Edward is perfect for you - _perfect_. But you seem to have your sabotage boots on! You told me you want him - then you fucking cut him off when he calls! Bella, fucking grow a pair, I'm telling you. _Take the bull by the horns_."

Lol in lecture mode. Never thought I'd see the day. "You said horns," I snickered.

"_Tomorrow_. If you don't get fucking laid tomorrow, or close to it, I'm going to take drastic action."

Fuck me. She was so serious.

"Threats are coercive!" I replied, nervously. "Coercion is nasty. What sort of action?"

"I'm going to tell him."

"Tell who?"

"You know who."

"Tell who what?"

"Tell Edward that you want it fast hot and hard, from behind, _twice_, standing up in the shower stall in Carlisle's bathroom."

"I do not! Well - that sounds damn good, but hey - you are_ not _going to tell Edward that!"

"Give me one good reason."

I stopped to think. Because - because Lol was right. I _was_ chicken. What if Edward found out I really, really liked him, but he actually thought I was a dickwad? So we'd had a few one-on-one chat sessions where we enjoyed talking to one another, but there were plenty more when we didn't. And yeah, apparently he was stunned at the sight of my boobies, but maybe he was reduced to speechlessness and gawping by the sight of anybody's bare chest. Maybe he got a fucking embarrassing boner every time he walked past a newsstand. And sure, he kept calling me, but he was probably calling Mike ten times a day as well.

"Sitting here waiting..." Lauren pouted. "Growing old..."

Damnit - I didn't like being this way. I didn't fucking know myself.

"Okay. Totally doing it at the band meeting. Totally," I announced.

"Right. Getting my happies tomorrow then, knowing you're getting yours."

"I have never met anyone as perverted as you. You belong in a psychiatric report. I'm going to use you as my thesis subject for my advanced Masters degree in people with unsavory practices and tastes."

"I'm going to mention you in my assignment at hairdressing college for most glaring and regrettable disregard of split ends."

"Oh my God, Lolly - do I have split ends?"

I was horrified, and rushed to the bathroom, where the light was better, wailing, "I need a protein treatment!"

She was lying of course, but the two of us launched a pre-emptive strike against dry hair by giving ourselves hot oil applications and winding our hair up in caps, and then we wandered back to my bedroom.

"Bag-lady," Lauren suddenly accused sternly, with a disapproving gaze at one of the bags from the laundromat the other day that I'd yet to deal with. Anally retentive as she was, not to mention presumptuous and intruding, Lauren had cleared herself a space in my closet and put all her laundry away like a prissy Catholic schoolgirl. No wonder mine was still sitting around.

"Oh, I was saving it as a treat for myself," I mumbled, but I upended it all on the bed anyway, and started finding places for things. The helpful folk at the laundry facility had not only cleaned and dried all my garments - they'd folded them as well, so I just needed to transfer everything to its rightful place. Jeans, here; t-shirts, here; sweaters, here; etc. Underwear - second drawer.

"Oh. Yeah, of course - you've still got that. I never found mine all that comfortable you know," Lolly remarked, gazing at what I held in my hand. A purple thong - the last remaining one of the matching pair we'd bought.

"I quite like it," I admitted. "It's hardly even there."

"Well, that's certainly true. Mine was so flimsy it pretty much fell apart on contact. Contact with Tyler the_ sex-beast_, that is."

"Really?" I asked, hoping to get a juicy and very detailed account.

"Yeah - you remember, you found it in the van the next day and threw it away. Although, how could you have done that? Where did you throw it? Oh, I'd been pretty hungover, let me think. What happened that morning?"

We both cast our minds back through the current golden haze of schnapps which is nowhere near as high in alcohol as it is in pleasure, although small amounts of it can make recent events recede. Consumed in larger quantities it can make matters of a mere couple of weeks ago elusive, and if you were to ever really indulge yourself in the taste you could probably lose decades. As it was, I might have lost a cell or two of previously tightly-held discretion.

"Um, um..." Lolita was mumbling. "The night before we all went to some cave of a nightclub somewhere, and you'd hurt your foot, and I went on a mercy mission out to the van for your painkillers, and Tyler came with me, and well, you know what transpired, and then we all went back to the hotel and I crashed out... And when I woke up you weren't there, but you turned up and said you and Edward had been for coffee. That was kinda unusual, I guess, but anyway... then we all left and he was in such a foul mood, heaven knows why...but hey, thanks for what you did. Was there a trashcan in the hotel foyer or something? You must have been pretty sneaky. Way to go, Bells."

"Mmm," I said.

"So what was up Eddie's nose that morning anyway? Why on earth would he make you get up and have coffee with him? He knew you always have sleep issues on tour. For someone who's such a stickler for rules, that was a bit unorthodox."

"Mmm," I said.

"He never asked _me_ to have coffee with him. And why that day?"

"Mmm," I said.

Lolly screwed her eyes up unattractively suddenly and tilted her head.

"There's something you're not telling me," she said, jabbing me with a finger. She's quite clever, the old Lol, for someone with her looks.

"No."

"Oh, yes there is." She's quite determined, too. "You've got a fucking secret, I can tell. The magnitude of the denial is inversely proportionate to the magnitude of the secret, and you never, _ever_ give a one-syllable response to anything. You'll get a chinese burn if you don't 'fess up right now."

Not being a pain-fan, I succumbed immediately.

"Deadweird was pissed because he thought I fucked Jasper," I admitted.

"Well, I thought he might think that, because he found you in the Sexinator's hotel room. But that was a day or two _after_wards, when both the bands were staying in the same hotel...oh, wait - _what_?"

Apparently I needed to repeat myself. "Edward thinks I fucked Jasper. The van business. That broken foot, nightclubbing night. He had given me the keys. Then about half an hour later he got the keys back from me."

"So?"

"Um, Lolly - it wasn't _me_ who found your underwear. It was Edweird. He'd made some sort of surveillance check that night after we all got back to the hotel, and he'd made the grisly discovery, and his brilliant brain worked out that I'd had a half hour window of opportunity to get jiggy in the van. He rang me the next morning and said I had to meet him in the breakfast room of the hotel. He went off his fucking head, lecturing me about getting sordid in a space that everybody had to share."

"But why didn't you tell him it hadn't been you?"

"Because - because I needed to speak to you first. It didn't seem right to me that Edward should know something that James didn't know. I thought it was your private business."

My Lolly gasped and threw her arms around me. "But, Bells - you actually let the guy you like believe you were screwing somebody else right under his nose because you were trying to keep a secret for your friend who was being a shameless slut?"

"I wasn't thinking of it quite in those terms."

When Lolly pulled her face out of my shoulder she was sniffling.

"But you got in trouble, over _me_."

"Ho's before bros. I mean - what's the equivalent of that, anyway? Sistas before mistas."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You felt bad enough. Deadweird already thought I was a colossal loser - what did it matter adding one more thing to my long list of heinous crimes?"

She frowned, my Lolly. "He just thought you drank and swore too much. That's not exactly the same as him thinking you had loose morals."

"Hmm," I said. "You know what, Lolly-Polly? I wouldn't have a fucking clue what he thinks. In fact, if he thought Elvis was alive and well and living in Minneapolis, I wouldn't be surprised."

"You're avoiding the issue. It doesn't matter what he thinks about Elvis. It matters what he thinks about you."

"If he thinks Elvis is alive and well he's clearly not well himself and we don't _want_ him thinking about me. I should be protected from him. He should be sectioned to special hospital."

"Bellie, _you_ should be sectioned to special hospital. But I think you need a hot beef injection. Leave it with me."

This peculiar assertion of Lauren's caused me to grimace. "You don't have the apparatus," I reminded her, since she must have misunderstood the diagrams in Gray's Anatomy.

"Tired now," was her response. "I'm on it. Just not tonight."

There was no way she was going to leave it there, tired or not. I waited, though not for long.

"So, what _exactly_ did Deadwoodweird say at your pleasant morning chat?" she demanded, within less time than it takes for the lights to turn once you're too far over the line.

"Oh, some raving garbage about disregard, lack of respect... general fucked-upness... extreme disappointment... flagrancy..."

"Vagrancy?" Lollipop asked. "Fragrancy?"

"Yep, and bad behavior... hooking-up..."

"Now it's starting to sound like his wishlist."

A little snigger escaped me. Trust Lolly to see the humor in it. Good girl.

"Oh, and he sort of may have mentioned the _item_."

Now Lolly really sat up.

"The_ item_? Like, the underwear?"

"Yes. Christ fuck almighty God - the _item_."

"It's a holy relic," Lolly whispered. "Sanctified."

I thought about it for less than a second. She thought about it for less than a second.

"Do you think he might have kept it?" she asked. "Like, sniffed it and kept it? Thinking it was yours?"

I threw myself on her and pushed her over.

"Lauren fucking Smellory - you are the _sickest_ fucking person that ever lived and I will wash your fucking _mind_ out with soap while you sleep! You know that thing they did in medieval times where they drilled people's skulls to let out the insanity? I am _so_ fucking drilling your head, you utter psycho! I am excavating your brain to donate it to the Smithsonian because you are so rampantly mental!"

"Has Jasper called?" she asked sweetly, and narrowly saved her own life. I paused in my attack.

Jax had rung a couple of times actually, intuitively calling during the few seconds a day that Lauren wasn't so close to me her dead skin cells were rubbing off and blocking my pores, and it was nice to speak to him.

"Maybe," I said breezily.

"Missing you?" she said.

Fuck, she was a nutjob. Why would she be trying to remind me about Jax in the middle of talking about Edward?

"Whose team are you batting for, Lol?" I queried, narrowing my eyes.

"Oh, I've already said. And so have you. I just want to make sure you're on track," she replied.

What fucking track? Indeed.

And just tonight, since using LollyPower to bring about the monumental expansion of my apartment, the Princess-Bride herself had declared she'd sleep on the sofa. This was to stop her breaking law and convention and decency by inappropriately touching my person and parts during the night.

"Why don't you scram and go to bed?" I asked, ready to face my contemplations, when I remembered something crucial.

"Don't drool on my cushions."

She probably would, loose-lipped as she was, and then I could just embroider her name on them and give them to her for Christmas to save myself the bother of throwing them away, and so that I wouldn't have to think of anything else to give her come December.

Lying awake with crossed-eyes trying hard to make my ceiling look 3-D, I devoted what was left of my attention to wondering what track she'd been fucking talking about. Did anyone publish a help manual on this particular matter? The Lonely Planet Guide to Knowing How To Unlonely Yourself With A Hot And Mystifying Guy?

Who fucking cared? But, Goddamn, the butterscotch schnapps bottle was no fucking use to take to bed, elixir of heaven though the taste might have been. Fuck. I was so full of gold courage and so wanting and needing a certain annoying somebody that I nearly fucking texted Gog and demanded that he turn up right now. Right fucking now. Come and check on me. Check and come on me.

I don't know how I didn't, because every single word I'd said to him on the phone was true. I did miss him. I couldn't stop thinking about him. And I really, really_ really_ wanted for him and me to make love.

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_In Which Lauren Speaks For All Of Us _by Dashzap


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